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Fred surges in Republican poll
12/06/2007 17:22 - (SA)
Washington - Fred Thompson, a former senator and star of the TV police drama Law & Order, surged into second place behind Rudy Giuliani in the race for the Republican presidential nomination in a new poll released on Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll also singled out Senator Barack Obama as the most electable Democrat, even though Democratic voters say they prefer Senator Hillary Clinton by a wide margin.
In a field of nine candidates vying for the Republican 2008 nomination, Thompson favoured by 21% of Republican voters, compared to 27% for former New York mayor Giuliani, the poll showed.
That put Thompson, who has yet to formally declare he is in the race, well ahead of Senator John McCain, with 12%, and ex-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, at 10%, in the poll.
When the poll stripped out all but the four leaders as possible choices, Giuliani still led with 32%, Thompson drew 28% support, McCain was at 17% and Romney at 14%, with the rest of the voters undecided.
Given the poll's margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points, those figures put Giuliani and Thompson in a statistical tie.
Clinton on top
The poll noted that Thompson's steadily edging closer to the race - he has been making political speeches and giving broad hints that he could run - has most hurt Romney, who has styled himself as the candidate of the most conservative Republican voters.
Conservatives have moved to Thompson, weakening Romney's own support base.
Meanwhile the poll confirmed Clinton's lead over Obama for the Democratic nomination, 33% to 22%.
Out of a field of eight, undeclared candidate former vice president Al Gore came in third with 15%, and former senator John Edwards fell back to eight percent for fourth.
When the top three declared candidates were put up against each other, Clinton stayed on top with 42% to Obama's 32% and Edwards took 20%.
However, in matchups with possible Republican candidates for the November 2008 presidential vote, Obama showed sharply better than Clinton.
'Electability' widely discussed
Clinton was 10 percentage points down to Giuliani's 49%, and was also topped by McCain, 45%-41%, and Romney, 43%-41%, highlighting the widely discussed issue of her "electability" as a woman and the wife of a former president, Bill Clinton.
In similar matchups, Obama tops Giuliani by five percent - within the poll's margin of error; 12 points over McCain, and 16 points over Romney.
The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll surveyed 1 183 adults around the country between June 7 and June 10.
- AFP
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