| Democratic Primary Voters | Republican Primary Voters |
| Clinton 33% | Giuliani 29% |
| Obama 25% | McCain 20% |
| Edwards 12% | Romney 9% |
| Not sure 20% | Not sure 19% |
This is very interesting on both sides of the aisles. First of all, Obama is gaining on Clinton at a not unremarkable pace. Clinton’s national prominence suggests that it will be more difficult for her to gain a larger piece of the pie than Obama because her name is already so well known that most voters have likely made their minds up about her. Obama, on the other hand, is enjoying increasingly wide exposure on the national stage and this is likely to narrow the margin with Clinton as the battle continues. Whether Obama can completely narrow that gap or even overtake Clinton remains to be seen.
The Republican numbers are even more interesting than the Democratic. The top two candidates are historically pro-choice (and I am forced to say “historically” due to McCain’s recent flip-flop on the issue and current ambiguity) and it remains to be seen if a candidate with that stance can be truly competitive among the GOP faithful primary voters. There is still no consensus on the right for a religious-conservative candidate but if one were to emerge this could pose a significant threat to both Guliani and McCain. I would suspect that as Republican Primary voters learn more about Guliani’s personal political stances and his own domestic history, some of the 9/11 shine will be dulled and his numbers will dip. Whether McCain’s continued tack to the right will translate into primary votes is still anyone’s guess.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the poll is the direct match-up combinations:
| Giuliani 47%, Clinton 40% | Giuliani 40%, Obama 46% | Giuliani 46%, Edwards 40% |
| McCain 47%, Clinton 39% | McCain 40%, Obama 44% | McCain 47%, Edwards 38% |
| Romney 35%, Clinton 45% | Romney 29%, Obama 51% | Romney 32%, Edwards 47% |
Obviously the most startling revelation produced is that Obama wins against everyone while Clinton goes down when pitted against everyone but Romney.
These two trends suggest some interesting things about Obama, Clinton, and the national mood. I would imagine that Obama’s success in these match-ups is due to his relatively weak name recognition compared to Guliani and McCain. With the national mood so strongly in favor of Democrats, I suspect that many people are going Obama just because he’s a Dem and they know little else about him. Surprisingly, that sentiment is enough to put him on top of the wildly popular Guliani.
On the flip-side of that argument, Clinton’s national profile is likely resulting in a large number of anti-Hillary votes. In the match-ups against Guliani and McCain, many voters are likely going for the Republican because they do not like Hillary. People simply have no idea who Mitt Romney is. The Guliani/Clinton and McCain/Clinton match-ups are the most interesting because all three candidates are so well known. Again, many are likely unfamiliar with the nuances of Guliani’s political stances and the affects of McCain’s attempts at hard-conservatism remain to be seen, but for the most part people should have some inkling of an opinion on all three persons. And with these formulated opinions comes two defeats for Hillary. Interesting…
On a related note, I get way too into this stuff and go on way too long…
The popularity of Giulani and Obama suggests that a significant portion of the electorate is ready to go in an entirely new direction in 2008, which means discarding those candidates who are known and who have been in the public limelight for some time — Clinton and McCain.