Giuliani Beats Clinton in Two of Three Swing States; Beats Obama in All Three
by Ryan Sager
Thu, 8 Mar 2007 at 10:02 AM
updated Thu, 8 Mar 2007 at 10:04 AM
It's been a mixed media week for the Giuliani camp, between the stories about his troubled family life on the one hand and the good news out of CPAC and all the national polls on the other.
And, so, let's take a look at a new swing-state poll from Quinnipiac. The poll, conducted February 25 to March 4, includes 1,125 people in Florida, 1,281 people in Ohio, and 1,134 people in Pennsylvania. (The margin of error in Florida and Pennsylvania is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points, and plus or minus 2.7 percentage points in Ohio.)
Looking ahead to the general, Mayor Giuliani beats Senator Clinton in Florida (47%-42%) and Pennsylvania (51%-40%). In Ohio, Mrs. Clinton edges out Mr. Giuliani (44%-43%).
With all the usual caveats about how early it is (we can't help ourselves around here...), what does it all mean?
Well, first of all, to look beyond the headlines I've seen on this story so far, there's not such great news in here for Senator Obama. He's at the height of his media-darling, media-superstar phase, and he doesn't do any better against Mr. Giuliani than Mrs. Clinton does — in fact, he does worse. Mr. Giuliani beats Mr. Obama in all three states: Florida (48%-36%), Pennsylvania (48%-36%), Ohio (44%-40%).
Senator Edwards loses Florida (48%-40%) and Pennsylvania (52%-35%) like Mrs. Clinton, and wins Ohio (45%-42%) like Mrs. Clinton as well.
Then there's this rather shocking result: In all of these matchups, Giuliani leads among independent voters and scores 12 percent or higher among Democrats. In Pennsylvania, he gets 20 percent of Democratic voters against either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama, and 19 percent against Mr. Edwards. As the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Peter A. Brown, says in the release: "That used to be Sen. John McCain's calling card. But although McCain remains well-liked among independents and Democrats, he's lost a step to the new guy in the race."
In fact, Mr. McCain does worse than Mr. Giuliani in a potential match-up with Mrs. Clinton. He ties her in Florida (44%-44%), loses by 3 points in Ohio (45%-42%), but does beat her in Pennsylvania (47%-41%).
The worst news for Mrs. Clinton out of all this (that she already knew) is that she has extremely high negatives in every state: In Florida, 39% view her negatively; in Ohio, 41% view her negatively; in Pennsylvania, 45% view her negatively.
UPDATE: I missed another poll, where Mr. Giuliani has now pulled ahead for the first time in New Hampshire, the home turf in many ways of Mr. McCain.
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