LA Times/Bloomberg Poll: McCain collapses to 3rd place; Thompson strong; Hillary has huge lead

Based on LA Times, RCP ^ | 4/12/07 | Dangus

[dangus]

REPUBLICAN DATA Giuliani 29%, Thompson 15%, McCain 12%, Romney 8%, Gingrich 8%. Others or none of the above, 28%.

Giuliani beats Clinton by 6, 48-42; McCain loses by 3, 42-45. Both lose to Obama (42-46 and 40-48, respectively).

61% of GOP wants to move beyond Bush's policies; only 30% wish to continue (immigration, war, etc?)

Sample size was small: only 437 probable Republican primary voters.

Article falsely claims, "When the survey reduced the field to three candidates, Giuliani's lead was more decisive: He drew 48% to McCain's 25% and Romney's 20%." In fact, this is only an artifice of having larger numbers; His ratio over Romney drops from 3.6:1 to 2.4:1, and he less than doubles Romney.

DEMOCRAT DATA Clinton 33, Obama 23, Edwards 13, Gore 13. Gore seems to pull evenly from the announced candidates. Among top three candidates, Clinton gets 50% of votes, Obama only 40

GENERIC DATA Generic democrats favored over generic republicans, 49-39. False characterization by LA Times: "Among GOP voters, 13% wanted the candidates to call for tougher immigration laws." Actually, 13% wanted that as TOP priority, finishing 2nd behind Iraq war (37%)

[dangus]

The RCP page is linked to, so as not to trigger auto-excerpting. The text is my own words, based on LA Times/Bloomberg data as reported in LA Times.

The LA Times story is here: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-poll12apr12,0,6052505,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[dangus]

RCP also triggered auto-excerpting. Drats.

[meg88]

McCain should just withdraw now.

[oyez]

Meaningless.

[oyez]

Meaningless.

[NittanyLion]

15% for Thompson? That’s huge...

[TommyDale]

"Oh God, please keep Fred Thompson out of this race!"

[Grendel9]

NYT or LAT...it’s still news with a
liberal slant. I don’t waste my time
taking them seriously.

[Kuksool]

[Generic democrats favored over generic republicans, 49-39.}

The Times/Bloomberg poll matches with the findings with Rasmusseen and Gallup about generic partisan preference. The problems in Iraq are turning people into Dems.

[dangus]

Well, whatever, but then isn’t it MORE significant that they show the race’s real conservative doing better against Rudy McRomney?

[massadvj]

When the survey reduced the field to three candidates, Giuliani's lead was more decisive: He drew 48% to McCain's 25% and Romney's 20%

This may well turn out to be the most boring Rep primary of my lifetime. Two more points and it is over.

[CharlesWayneCT]

DEMOCRAT DATA Clinton 33, Obama 23, Edwards 13, Gore 13. Gore seems to pull evenly from the announced candidates. Among top three candidates, Clinton gets 50% of votes, Obama only 40

Something is wrong here. They must have meant 'top two candidates'. First, which of the two (gore or edwards) would be the '3rd' candidate. Second, it makes no sense that dropping either Edwards or Gore would actually reduce the support for the other to below 10%.

On the republican side, they made a different mistake. Their 'top 3' weren't the top three, it was the first, third, and fourth. Thompson was number 2.

So when they drop the 2nd-place person, the 3rd and 4th-place people pick up more support than the 1st-place person. But that's not surprising. I believe that if they dropped every candidate except Rudy, he still wouldn't get more than 50%.

[traderrob6]

“Meaningless”

You’d like to think so.

[stephenjohnbanker]

LOL!

[TommyDale]

The problem is that it won’t be between Giuliani, McCain and Romney. McCain is about finished. When Fred Thompson enters the race, several others will fall by the wayside and it will be a two man race between Giuliani and Thompson. Buckle your seatbelt and hang on.

[shutterspeed]

The most interesting number in this poll is the 28% "None of the Above".

For all of you who have said Fred has waited too long, this should give you pause. Other polls have shown that Fred is still largely unknown. What support he has now has come entirely from speculation. When he does gear up and does begin to campaign, there is clearly an untapped well of voters out there waiting for a palatable candidate.

I will refrain from the candidate bashing or soothsaying that so many here enjoy, but it's really like reading a weather map; the climate for a dark horse entry is ripe.

The "top three" GOP candidates are very well known at this point and none of them are running away with it. Whether Fred catches on or not, the GOP voters at large are clearly not motivated to get behind the "top three" wholeheartedly.

This poll is small and not hugely significant other than simply pointing out what most of us really already suspected... that is that none of the announced candidates have captured the hearts of the electorate. No support for any of the candidates is solid at this point.

[phillyfanatic]

If Rudy G does win the nomination, John McCain would make a great SECDEF. And Fred T a good VP choice.

[JohnnyZ]

Article falsely claims, "When the survey reduced the field to three candidates, Giuliani's lead was more decisive: He drew 48% to McCain's 25% and Romney's 20%."

It wasn't false, but it was a foolish poll question -- it was forcing the respondent to choose between only Rudy McRomney, even though that will not be who is on the ballot. Not sure what point it serves.

[oyez]

All this is too damned early and it all about money.

[Politicalmom]

Thompson is not interested in being VP.