A McCain Surge?
by Ryan Sager
Tue, 13 Mar 2007 at 6:12 PM
updated Tue, 13 Mar 2007 at 6:23 PM
According to the latest New York Times/CBS poll (PDF), Mayor Giuliani now leads Senator McCain by 9 points among Republican primary voters, 43%-34%, in a proposed head-to-head match-up. That's a much smaller gap than in last month's poll, which had Mr. Giuliani ahead 21 points among Republican primary voters, 50%-29%.
What does it all mean? Maybe Mr. McCain had a good month in February despite a lack of positive press. Perhaps he got a bounce out of his semi-announcement on the David Letterman show. Maybe Mr. Giuliani has been damaged by stories focusing on his rocky personal life. Perhaps Mr. Giuliani is being dragged down by increasing awareness of his moderate-to-liberal positions on abortion, gay, and gun rights.
None of this particularly adds up, though.
A look at the favorability ratings for Messrs. McCain and Giuliani in the NYT/CBS poll shows a drop in regard for both candidates since January, and a bigger drop for Mr. McCain (39 down to 24 for Mr. McCain, 41 down to 33 for Mr. Giuliani). At the same time, both candidates rate about the same (with a slight edge to Mr. McCain) from respondents to this poll on the question of whether they "share the same values as most Republicans" (no comparison point is given for last month).
Respondents to the NYT/CBS poll also said they knew more about Mr. McCain's positions on the issues — 28% said they knew "not much" about Mr. Giuliani's positions, as opposed to only 19% who said the same for Mr. McCain — but, again, no point of comparison was available from last month.
As for whether any of this represents a McCain surge or a stalling of Mr. Giuliani's campaign — the spin from the McCain camp — I'll let the Great Rule of Headline Question Marks answer that one. But, along with the ARG polls showing a much closer race than other polls, it's something for McCainiacs to hang their hats on.
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