Poll Shows Rudy Giuliani Losing GOP Support With Fred Thompson Running
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 11, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The first major poll on the Republican battle for president following Fred Thompson’s entry into the contest finds Thompson gaining and pro-abortion ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani losing support. The survey also finds John McCain and Mitt Romney as the only other top GOP candidates.
A new CBS News/New York Times poll finds Giuliani getting the support of just 27 percent of Republicans, down from 38 percent in August.
After holding a large 20 percentage point lead over Thompson last month, Giuliani now leads by just five percent as Thompson’s announcement propelled him to 22 percent among Republicans.
But, Thompson isn’t the only candidate to benefit from the former New York City mayor’s plunging poll numbers.
The CBS News survey also found that Arizona Sen. John McCain has partially recovered from his polling slump to rise six percent from last month to 18 percent in the latest poll.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won August’s straw poll in Iowa and has been faring well in polls in leading primary states such as New Hampshire and Michigan, came in fourth in the CBS survey with 14 percent.
Meanwhile, the poll shows that most voters can’t correctly identify where Giuliani stands on the issue of abortion, despite the work of pro-life candidates to make it clear he is the only pro-abortion candidate on the Republican side.
The CBS/Times poll found that 41 percent correctly pointed out that he supports legal abortions but 31 percent wrongly called him a pro-life candidate. The other 28 percent didn’t know where he stood.
The poll also surveyed Democrats and found that pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton remains in the lead with the backing of 44 percent of party members.
Pro-abortion Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois had the support of 26 percent while pro-abortion former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards stood at 17 percent in the polls.
The CBS News/New York Times survey featured a random sample of 1263 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone September 4-9, 2007. The margin of error is three percentage points.
