Rasmussen has released another poll that must have Hillary in a cold sweat today. It shows that nationally Hillary has 22%, Obama is at 21% and Edwards is at 15%. David Weigal of the Reason blog Hit & Run has good commentary on what this means:
John Edwards polls at 15 percent; he’s up 6 since the last poll, Obama’s up 4. Hillary is down 12 points from the last poll in early December.
How sad is this for Clinton? In 1999 we (blessedly) didn’t start the presidential race this early, but Texas Gov. George Bush was coming in around 40 percent support in Republican primary polls. A poll taken by Opinion Research Corporation (CNN’s pollster, now that Gallup’s split off from the network) in Jan 6-11, 1999, had Bush at 40 percent, Elizabeth Dole at 22 percent, Jack Kemp at 8, and a bunch of single-digiters including Dan Quayle and some guy named John McCain. Most Republicans had heard of Bush (or thought he was his dad) and kind of liked him. Every Democrat knows who Hillary Clinton is, and almost 4/5 of them are looking for another candidate. It’s a blow to the vaunted “support the war, don’t support Grand Theft Auto” playbook.
The punchline: This poll was taken before Obama announced he was in the race.
Earlier today, I summed up my thoughts on what this might mean for a Hillary Clinton candidacy:
Is Hillary the new Hubert Humphrey? It seems increasingly likely that she’s boxed herself in a hole. She has to stop the bleeding and the only way she could do that is to come out against the war. But it really does seem as if she really does believe in the war (otherwise she would’ve denounced it 2 years ago) and can only manage to criticize it. But now, it’s almost too late anyway. The Democratic Party has 2 other major candidates that have been much more against the war and that excites them far more. Hillary is incredibly smart and she must see this. If she runs and loses in primaries, she’ll be destroyed.
I still think it’s likely that she’ll run, but if her poll numbers continue to drop, maybe Harry Reid’s Majority Leader offer won’t look too bad…
Update: It looks like Tony Snow is claiming that Hillary’s Iraq position is very similar to that of the White House’s position. Yup, that’ll go a long way to helping her poll numbers.
January 17th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
It’s still too early for her to panic. If she actually expected to just ride to the nomination without having to fight for it, then she doesn’t deserve it.
January 17th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Interesting is that Edwards is making the move turning the thing into a three horse race.
January 17th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
marK,
It’s still too early for her to panic.
Perhaps. But she’s in the same boat as McCain in terms of name recognition. Everyone knows who they are and what they stand for. McCain’s numbers are holding steady, but her numbers are falling fast. I wish I could remember the link offhand but I saw a poll that said that only 3% of the country is not sure what to make of her. That means there are almost no swing voters that could be convinced to support her. If she makes a dramatic “I was wrong” mea culpa speech, she might be able to salvage some of her support within the base, but a lot of the damage is already done. She’s way behind in Iowa, she’s behind in Nevada (Edwards is heavily tied to the unions) and unless she blows everyone away in New Hampshire (even there Obama is coming on strong), I can’t see how she beats Edwards and Obama in South Carolina. With that type of situation, her support would dry up incredibly fast.
January 17th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Hillary has played this nomination business much like Giuliani on the Republican side. She’s done whatsoever, beyond shoring up some donor support. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t been to Iowa once. So, I’m not terribly surprised she’s fading. But the good news is, this is probably the time when she wants to fade. A full year from the first caucuses, and she’s no longer the “default” frontrunner. That keeps her from getting old, fast. But she really needs to start campaigning. Otherwise she’s dead in the water.
January 17th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Matt,
A full year from the first caucuses, and she’s no longer the “default†frontrunner. That keeps her from getting old, fast.
But the reason her poll numbers all falling is because the Democratic base thinks she is old and out of touch. If she falls in the polls, what could she possibly do to bring her numbers up again? She doesn’t seem to like the media and that’s why she largely avoids much publicity and when she does give an interview or speech, it’s so heavily rehearsed to avoid any gaffes that it becomes wooden and cold in the public’s eye.
January 17th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
LJ,
She could run circles around Edwards and Obama in debates. She could point that she actually has a modicum of experience and that the White House and its difficulties are very familiar to her. I dislike Hillary, but if it becomes an issue based campaign, I can’t help but think she has the advantage. It was never going to become that type of campaign if you had Barack Obama chasing her as the ascendent media superstar. As it is, he’ll return to eath, and she’ll have all of the various advantages she’d already have had (large war chest, strong supporters, Bill), but the campaign will be defined on ground that she’ll likely find more solid.
January 17th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Hillary’s biggest problem is her vote in support of the War on Terror. That is why her numbers are falling. The liberal radicals are well to the left of her and they will favor Obama.
Can she stop the bleeding? It will be interesting.. I still consider here the front runner as it is very early.
January 17th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
I’m a conservative Republican who used to detest Hillary. Now, from among all the likely Dem Pres. candidates who have a chance at their nomination, I want her to get it because I dislike Obama and especially Edwards even more. At least Hillary is mildly responsible on foreign-policy issues and has some knowledge and experience at the White House. Besides charisma, Obama has absolutely nothing to recommend him for the White House. He’s barely middle-management material at a corporation somewhere! And Edwards is a complete demagogue straight out of some 1960s college-campus rally. A fraud and a hypocrite, he is.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Edwards is a guy who supports a 1950s economic policy and a 1970s foreign policy. He’d be the most fiscally liberal Democratic nominee since the 1980s, and the Democrats will suffer for it in states they’ve been taking for granted.
I don’t see how Hillary can beat Edwards and Obama in the debates. Her shrill demeanor and dearth of humanity will offset her superior knowledge and experience. She’ll be the most hawkish of the three, and that won’t play well among Democrats.
What’s so interesting is that Hillary is collapsing on the Democratic side as Dems actually start thinking about who they really plan to vote for, instead of just parroting the name they best know. Republicans are presumably doing the same thing, and as they do so, Rudy and McCain aren’t losing support, and Newt appears to be the only other Republican actually gaining ground. If Romney were going to start climbing, it would be now. But it’s just not happening. Which may mean that Kavon’s original theory from way back when was right: that Romney has been propped up almost exclusively by a very aggressive online presence.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Dave,
I agree. How many months until we can begin a Romney Death Watch if his numbers don’t start moving up? Heh.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:41 am
LJ, keep on chuckling…predictions like that have a way of coming back!
January 18th, 2007 at 12:58 am
murphy,
Lol, I’m only half serious. But you do have to be somewhat worried, as a Romney supporter, that his numbers have been essentially unchanged for the past 6 months despite all the money and hype he’s gotten. It really shows how useless the GOPBloggers poll really was. For what it’s worth, Romney should get a good bump after the April debates if he does well.
January 18th, 2007 at 6:11 am
Hey guys,
Great site.
Let’s not forget Kerry was given no hope in November/early December 2003!
Romney supporters like Chad just have to be a bit patient.
January 18th, 2007 at 7:37 am
As both marK and I have mentioned, Romney’s action don’t indicate a serious attempt to effect polls. I’ve seen Mike Huckabee on TV about twice as much in the last week then I’ve seen Romney in the last three months. For all Romney’s movement, his name recognition has remained essentially constant for the last six months. There’s only so much progress a person can make when only 15-25% of people know who he is. Assuming people who don’t know anything about him aren’t supporting him, he seems to be getting the support of anywhere between 1/2 and 1/4 of people who are aware of him. And it has in fact been gradually rising. Going from 4-7% when you’re name recognition remains so low is in fact a statistically significant change. I’m pretty confident Romney has internal polls detailing this. And I suspect, once he actually, you know, appears on the public conciousness by actually taking to the airwaves, I quite imagine these polls are likely to change.
January 18th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Just imagine what Huckabee’s poll numbers will be when he starts running.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:00 am
If the people that are arguing that Hillary is the most formidable Democratic nominee (of Obama, Edwards, Clinton and Gore) are right, now might be a good time for Republicans to cautiously help her numbers drop. You know, hold off on revealing Obama and Edwards’ complete lack of experience, take a few chances to praise Hillary for her support of the war, that type of thing.
January 18th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
David,
There are just too many people who know about those things for your scheme to work. It is human nature to blab. That is the reason I quit believing in conspiracies about the time I quit believing in the Easter Bunny.