Clinton Leads Democrats, Romney Atop GOP
If one believes the main stream media has a liberal bias that may help explain the dominant focus on national polls for the 2008 Presidential election. This is the primary/caucus season that finds surprisingly little attention being given to state polls. Perhaps that is due to the media’s alleged liberal leaning and the strength among Democratic party candidates of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the national polls.
In Iowa, according to an AP report, polling data shows Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lead over John Edwards shrinks from the double digit distance in the national polls to five points. With a five point margin of error in the poll, Clinton and Edwards are in a dead heat.
In similar fashion the GOP results show Mitt Romney leading in Iowa at 28% with his nearest rival, Rudy Giuliani, at 16%. Thompson’s effective headline grabbing strategy of dragging out announcing his candidacy has not translated to higher than tied for 2nd place in Iowa just above the 2nd tier players. This poll shows Giuliani and Thompson tied at 16% and with a five point margin of error, 8% Mike Huckabee is still doing better than expected.
With Edwards and Clinton in a virtual tie in Iowa, what does that say about the national polls. Is it simply a matter of most voters not being focused on the election this early? Is it a case of campaign effectiveness in the early states or the fact that primary/caucus schedules may change? In this case, Iowa, are voters not giving Clinton the easy pass on her history that Democrats do nationally? Could the Democratic party faithful be so obsessed with winning the White House that no matter what Hillary does they are willing to overlook it? As the early states draw closer perhaps their collective conscience will cause the majority of Dems to reject Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
Clinton Leads Democrats, Romney Atop GOP
13 hours ago
THE RACE: The presidential primary in Iowa for Democrats and Republicans.
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THE NUMBERS — DEMOCRATS
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 28 percent
John Edwards, 23 percent
Barack Obama, 19 percent
Bill Richardson, 10 percent
(all other candidates below 5 percent)
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THE NUMBERS — REPUBLICANS
Mitt Romney, 28 percent
Rudy Giuliani, 16 percent
Fred Thompson, 16 percent
Mike Huckabee, 8 percent
John McCain, 7 percent
(all other candidates below 5 percent)
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OF INTEREST:
Asked if they might vote for a candidate other than the person they now support, 59 percent of Democrats and 72 percent of Republicans said they might switch.
The telephone poll for the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg was conducted Sept. 6-10. The margin of sampling error for both the 462 Democratic caucus voters and 350 Republican caucus voters was plus or minus 5 percentage points.