McCain Cuts Giuliani's Lead From 16 To 6; Edge Narrows Even More If Thompson and Gingrich Enter Race

Romney drops to fourth place. But note the survey composition, which is sketchy.

- Sen. John McCain has slashed Rudy Giuliani's double-digit lead by 10 points, but the GOP picture gets muddier if former Sen. Fred Thompson or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich enters the race, according to a CNN poll gauging the popularity of 2008 presidential hopefuls.

Giuliani, the former New York mayor, had a healthy 16-point lead over the Arizona senator last month, but that has dwindled to six points -- that is, if either Thompson or Gingrich enters the race.

Should they both toss their hats in the ring, Giuliani's lead over McCain drops to three points, 27 percent to 24 percent.

Analysts say McCain may have been buoyed by an April 11 speech at the Virginia Military Institute, in which he declared full support for President Bush's plan to send additional troops to Iraq. Giuliani may have taken a hit in the polls as questions continue to arise about his stances on abortion, gay rights and gun rights.

The CNN poll was conducted Tuesday through Thursday by Opinion Research Corp. Pollsters quizzed 1,218 registered voters, including 498 who call themselves Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents and 368 Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.

The Democratic survey has a sampling error of 4 percentage points; the GOP survey's sampling error is 5 percentage points.

They quizzed a mere 368 "Republicans," which includes Republican-leaning independents? Since the entire survey skews left, pardon me for suspecting the Republican subsample skews left as well.

The poll shows that voters would give substantial support to Thompson or Gingrich if they decided to enter.

Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee who has played a district attorney on three episodes of NBC's "Law & Order," would snare 11 percent of the vote (12 percent if Gingrich decides not to enter) if he announced a 2008 presidential bid.

Gingrich, on the other hand, would take 8 percent of the vote (10 percent without Thompson in the race) if he entered the running.

...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who led Republican hopefuls in first-quarter fundraising with $23 million, slid into the No. 4 spot -- between Thompson and Gingrich -- with 10 percent of the vote.

For his part, Romney is leading in still-influential-but-not-quite-as-much-now Iowa, followed by McCain.

Giuliani, incidentally, picked up a $2100 contribution from Adam Sandler (near the bottom of the article). Just mentioned because Sandler's politics have occasionally been grist for discussion. Not that this proves all that much either way.

Thanks to DaveP. for the last bit.

posted by Ace at 11:58 AM

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