The weekly Rasmussen Reports 2008 Republican presidential primary poll update was released yesterday, and it found Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson still locked in a tight race for the party’s nomination. Giuliani leads Thompson 24%-23%. This week marked the fourth straight where Giuliani has had the lead, but unlike Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, the former New York City mayor isn’t building support or gaining momentum. For five of the past six weeks he has been at either 24% or 25%. Thompson saw his numbers rebound slightly this week, but after having a red hot stretch from mid June to early July, he has been under 25% for the past four weeks.
Mitt Romney stayed in third place with 13%, and John McCain is nipping at his heels with 12%. This is the tenth consecutive week that Romney’s support has been in the 12%-14% range. While the almost, but not quite, dead campaign of John McCain held the exact same level of support that they had the previous week. However his total support has hovered at 10%-12% for the last three months. Mike Huckabee remained in fourth at five percent, while Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter split 4%. Eighteen percent of Republicans remained undecided.
What I see in these numbers is a race that is starting to take shape. Giuliani and Thomson are the serious contenders, while Romney and McCain represent fallback positions for the social conservatives and moderates respectively. One of the more puzzling elements of this race is the inability of Mike Huckabee to break through. Huckabee is more conservative that Giuliani, Romney, and McCain, but he seems to be being ignored by voters who are looking for an even more conservative candidate. The other four candidates in the race are probably going to be squeezed out by a combination of a lack of fundraising and the frontloaded primary system. This race is still volatile, but it is starting to become more consistent.
Rasmussen Reports weekly table
Jason Easley is the editor of the politics zone at 411mania.com. Â His news column The Political Universe appears on Tuesdays and Fridays at www.411mania.com/politicsÂ
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8 users commented in " Poll Update: Giuliani leads Thompson by a point "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThat’s another “So what?” poll. Rasmussen is still stuck in the last century, relying on land lines and skewed results to whomever commissitons the polls. The modern election is online and wireless, not on paper and wired.
Perhaps Rasmussen ought to try a poll based on calling cell phones and sending emails instead. I am willing to bet that an honest appraisal of the answers vs. the non-answers would provide a much different result.
“The Revolution will NOT be televised.” RP08
Should have known this came from some half-wit at 411mania. What insight. What knowledge. What are the qualifications for being an “editor” there? Ages 15 and up maybe?
James your an idiot who has probably never even visited the site.
Are you another Ron Paul fan, who is upset because your guy has no chance. I’ll bet if I wrote something you agreed with then I would be a genius.
Get a clue.
By the way, Rasmussen relies on polls of likely voters. Ron Paul isn’t going to win a single thing and frankly you Paul supporters need to stop whining.
This is a political season. No need for all to get nasty. Ron Paul has just as many votes as Rudy or Thompson does right now. None! Let each other express their views.
I am a Ron Paul support because I agree with him on the issues:
I believe that a decentralized decision making progress that empowers the people is better than a centralized one.
I am against the war, and have been from the beginning.
I believe strongly in peoples freedom to trade in an honest manner.
I believe our government should have balanced budgets.
I believe we should have an honest monetary system.
I don’t believe we should have standing armies in 143 nations around the world.
I don’t believe we should use torture.
I don’t believe we should have secret prisons and infinite detentions.
I don’t believe we should imprison 500% more African Americans per 100,000 than they did at the height of apartheid.
I believe in more freedom and responsibility to the people.
As much as the people are respectful of one another’s rights is as much liberty we will have. Ron Paul believes in the people as do I. Given a chance at more freedom again, I believe the American people will take the responsibility and respect for their fellow man and let the height of human character be exemplified.
Ron Paul has 36,000 grass roots supporters on meetup.com. He is raising significant funds for the campaign and is growing as the freedom message gets out. Nationally Dr. Paul doesn’t have the name recognition as some other candidates. Which means as his name recognition goes up, he will have the opportunity to convert voters. Based on Post debate polls he does that rather well. Can he win? Sure, he just needs to get more votes than the other guys. It’s that simple. Do we know who will win? No, if we did would Jason or James or I be writing these comments?
So let’s remember to be respectful of each other and try to engage in meaningful debate.
May the best man win! And for me Ron Paul is the best man.
Mr. 411, all you did was type out a bunch of gibberish that tells people absolutely nothing, then prove your own bias by firing back on assumptions and namecalling. Anyone else that didn’t know about that poll could still find all that information you just enlightened the world with just by you giving them the link. People don’t need to hear what your weak mind has to say about a certain poll’s numbers, when it’s so obvious that your knowledge is slim to none. You provide absolutely nothing new. Just baseless opinions off of a certain poll, that’s had its own problems in the past. Then you resort to name-calling instead of explaining yourself, perfectly representing what kind of pathetic wannabe writers that site lets on there. Keep pushing your half-wit political agenda. You’re influencing no one. It’s not hard to see right through your ignorance and desperate writing style. 411 is truly a laugh though. I’ll give you that.
And it’s you’re. Not your. Finish college yet?
Shut up James, You started the personal attacks with “half-wit” and it got you exactly what you deserve….less than actually. I haven’t quite figured out why yet but, seeing as many Paul supporters as I have drool while they troll other candidate articles is just like reading Liberal lunatics. Although Steve may or may not be an exception. Lets find out;
Now Steve,
Honest free trade, balanced budgets, small unobtrusive government, honest monetary system, strict adherence to our Constitution, we have complete agreement on…but, then again, any loyal American would never argue any of those points.
Having got those out of the way, do you honestly understand the difference between interrogation and torture, AND what makes you think that 99.9% of American soldiers who are specifically trained for such critical work would break our morality and law by committing sadistic torture with or without some armchair quarterback back home dictating exactly what is “allowed” or not? If you’ve been a soldier in combat or a law enforcement officer that has experienced tough duty I’ld truly enjoy debating with someone who also understands, if you haven’t, please don’t attempt to grasp what you couldn’t hope to appreciate.
AND what in gods name are you talking about with the “500% imprisonment of African” Americans? Also, what does apartheid have anything at all to do with us!? I can’t wait to hear this one. Please provide only facts from credible sources, meaning no quotes or other spin from Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the ACLU, Black Panthers, Michael Jackson, Danny Glover, OJ Simpson or the NAACP for starters…Ok, so I had a little fun with that, so what.
Ras is a joke. Nobody takes that guy seriously anymore. Same with Thompson, hes a joke too. I saw pics of him carrying around a hot dog at the fair getting his picture taken with it. He never ate it. It was a prop. Just like that stupid red truck. L A M E
“What I see in these numbers is a race that is starting to take shape. Giuliani and Thomson are the serious contenders, while Romney and McCain represent fallback positions for the social conservatives and moderates respectively.”
Are you kidding me? This is what you read in this poll? Have you bothered to follow the polls in states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and now Michigan (soon to become one of the first states to have a primary). Romney is leading in all those states with double digits. Giulani and especially Thomson are failing where it counts – in the early primary states.
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