NYTimes.comDecember 7, 2006
Support for White House Bid Eludes All But a Few, Polls Show By Marie Horrigan
With no incumbent president or vice president considering a run, the 2008 presidential race is described as one of the most wide-open in years. But two new polls indicate that at this early point in the race, only a few candidates in either party enjoy significant support.
The surveys, released separately Thursday by Fox News and the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, both showed New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York with a more than 2-to-1 lead over the rest of the Democratic field.
Clinton was supported by 33 percent of respondents in both surveys. Her closest competition comes from three people who, like her, have not officially declared their intentions: 2000 presidential nominee Al Gore, freshman Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
Obama was backed by 12 percent of respondents in both surveys. Gore was just ahead of him in the Marist poll, but trailed Obama by 1 percentage point in the Fox News poll, conducted by Opinion Dynamics.
Edwards, the Democrats’ 2004 vice presidential nominee, trailed Gore and Obama in the Fox News poll, where he registered 8 percent. However, he was tied with Gore in the Marist poll.
The remaining Democrats were mired in single digits in both polls. That group included 2004 presidential nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, and the two declared candidates in the race, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh.
Larry Shiman, a vice president at Opinion Dynamics, told CQPolitics.com he was surprised by the strength of Clinton’s lead. “It’s no lock, but she’s certainly in a very stronger position and a little bit stronger than what I expected,” he said of her results.
Among Republicans, the surveys showed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain leading the pack.
Giuliani led in both surveys, though he was statistically tied with McCain in the Marist poll, which showed Giuliani at 24 percent compared to 23 percent for McCain. The Fox News poll gave Giuliani a larger lead over McCain, 30 percent to 23 percent.
The Marist poll also showed solid support for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was backed by 15 percent of respondents. Rice, who has consistently denied holding presidential aspirations, was not included in the Fox News poll.
Other Republicans, including Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who announced his campaign Monday, trailed with single-digit percentages.
With 23 months until the election and more than a year until the first nominating contest in Iowa, pollsters caution against viewing the leads as prohibitive — most of the candidates are largely unknown to many Americans, and surveys taken this far out from previous elections have proven poor predictors of the actual outcomes.
Usually, such skepticism also is rooted in the belief that the public is not engaged in politics so far out from the election, but the Fox News poll indicates interest is already running high: Nearly seven out of 10 respondents described themselves as “very” or “extremely” interested in the presidential election.
The recent midterm elections, ongoing fighting in Iraq and long-awaited release of the Iraq Study Group’s report on that conflict have kept politics in the front of voters minds, Shiman said.
Both pollsters underscored the electability of the top candidates. While Clinton amassed an enormous campaign chest for the 2006 election and had $13.9 million in cash as of Oct. 18, despite spending more $29.5 million on her Senate election, she scored poorly outside her own party.
The problem for Giuliani, however, is flipped — many voters remain unaware of his liberal stances on social issues including gun control, abortion rights and gay marriage, which could make it difficult for him to win over the conservatives that make up a large part of the Republican primary voting base.
“The problem for [Giuliani] is to continue to be acceptable to Republican primary voters. Right now most of them find his ideology to be fine — but then again, they don’t know that much about him,” said Lee M. Miringoff, director of polling for Marist College.
Clinton and Rice, the Marist poll suggested, will have to counter public ambivalence about their possible candidacies: Half of the respondents asked each woman not to run for president.
What was unclear from their poll, Miringoff told CQPolitics.com, was whether voters’ impression of Clinton was implacable.
“There’s just a huge number of people who would not consider voting for Hillary Clinton; it’s close to half the electorate,” he said. “And that means she’s either got to drive that number down or there’s not a lot of room for error in the campaign.”
The WNBC/Marist Poll was conducted over the telephone from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3 with 1,229 adults, 967 of whom were registered voters, and had an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The Fox News Poll was conducted over the telephone from Dec. 5-6 with 900 registered voters, and also had an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
© 2006 Congressional Quarterly