Rasmussen gave Rudy Guliani his worst poll showing of the campaign season today, dropping him to 13%. This is not only his worst daily showing, it’s over 20 points off his best showings back in the spring, when Rasmussen’s weekly averages at several times put him at nearly 40%. Other polls at the time pegged him at over 40%, with at least two putting him at 44%. My how times can change.
Truth be told, Rudy’s probably not in as much trouble as a 13% poll rating would indicate. The reasons are as follows:
1) It’s just Rasmussen. Nobody else is showing Rudy under 20%, which indicates that Rasmussen is probably an outlier here (and a nasty off-the-reservation outlier at that)
2) Rasmussen has never been particularly friendly to Rudy, as I can recall. At least since the race grew into a four-way field, either Rasmussen has regularly under-polled Rudy’s strength or everyone else has over-polled it. I’ll go with the former conclusion.
3) Rasmussen’s dropoff from Rudy hasn’t showed up with anybody else. Usually, if one candidate loses support another will pick up at least a part of it. In this case, there have been net drops of 5 (Rudy dropped 3, Huck and Romney 1 each) and only a net gain of 2 by McCain. Most of this is probably dropped fractions, but with that said it looks like Undecided/Other has gotten a bit of a temporary boost. Basically, Rudy is dropping in a vacuum in some ways.
So, Rudy doesn’t need to panic based on Rasmussen’s figures. He’ll have some trouble, but those figures are, at the very least, not a show-stopper. However, I think it can safely be said that for the first time in thirty two years, we have a Republican Primary contest without a frontrunner, as different polls have now showed every major candidate but Fred Thompson within one point of Rudy Guliani.
Tags: Polls, Republican Primary, Rudy Guliani
