Rasmussen Poll Shows Giuliani Still in Lead, McCain, Thompson and Romney in Statistical Tie for 2nd
Rasmussen released a poll on Thursday, April 12, showing that Senator McCain still trails former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a poll of 512 likely Republican primary voters, by a statistically significant margin, 27%-16%. However, McCain is now in a statistical tie for second place, a three-way battle with former Tennessee Senator Fred Dalton Thompson and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
(The American Research Group, a leading pollster, has a Ballot Lead Calculator, in which you can type the lead and the sample size, and determine if a lead is statistically significant. You can find it at http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/moe2.shtml.)
The difference between Giuliani and McCain has remained steady since last week’s poll, but it was Romney’s best showing ever in Rasmussen’s poll, likely due to the positive publicity he received for winning the first quarter fundraising FEC report on the GOP side. Giuliani’s numbers, although steady from a week ago, took a nosedive two weeks ago and has yet to recover.
Nonetheless, the nomination process is not decided by a national primary, and so a poll of this nature should be taken for what it’s worth. (At least the head-to-head matchups with Democrats, although even further away chronologically in November 2008, largely reflect the actual battle; it does not matter who leads among Republicans nationally, since it will be who leads among Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, etc. that will matter.)
For the full report:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Political%20Tracking/Republican%20Primary/2008GOPPresidentialPrimary.htm
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