Poll Shows Pro-Abortion Stance Hurting Rudy Giuliani With Republicans 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 16, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A new national poll shows the issue of abortion is hurting Rudy Giuliani as he’s now slipping in the overall lead he has over his top rivals for the party’s presidential nomination. The survey is the first to come out since a flap over whether he supported taxpayer funding of abortion.
A new CNN poll released Monday shows that Sen. John McCain, the Arizona lawmaker who had been sliding in the polls, has slightly recovered.
He cut Giuliani’s double digit lead by 10 points and now the former New York City mayor leads McCain by a 27-24 percentage point margin.
The poll found that pro-life former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who has not yet announced a candidacy, has the backing of 11 percent of Republicans. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who says he recently became pro-life, has 10 percent.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who has not announced a candidacy, has the backing of 8 percent and several other candidate stood further down in the poll. Overall, 13 percent of Republicans were unsure about which candidate they support.
Without Gingrich in the race, Giuliani moves up to 30 percent, McCain has 24 percent, Thompson gets 12 percent and Romney gets 10 percent.
But other polls have shown that Gingrich’s support is largely among more conservative Republicans who steer to Thompson, Romney, or pro-life Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback if he’s not included.
Without Thompson in the race, Giuliani leads McCain 31-25 with Romney getting 12 percent.
Meanwhile, a a poll by Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times shows 29 percent of respondents would back Giuliani and has Thompson ahead of McCain, who is much further back in that survey than the CNN poll.
Thompson is second with 15 percent in the Bloomberg survey followed by McCain with 12 percent. Romney had eight percent and Gingrich seven percent.
The poll was conducted earlier in the month, before the Giuliani abortion flap.
Among Democrats, the CNN poll shows Sen. Hillary Clinton with 30 percent, Sen. Barack Obama with 26 percent, former Vice President Al Gore with 15 percent and former Sen. John Edwards with 12 percent.
Without Gore, Clinton leads Obama 36-28 percent and Edwards has 15 percent.
They all strongly support abortion and forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research.
The CNN poll was conducted Tuesday through Thursday by Opinion Research Corp, which interviewed 1,218 registered voters, including 498 Democrats and 368 Republicans.
The Democratic survey has a sampling error of 4 percentage points; the GOP survey’s sampling error is 5 percentage points.
