Gallup: Hillary Losing Ground (Update: Worse Than First Thought)
Recall the pushback when we linked to the Zogby poll that showed Hillary's support eroding at the end of November? The numbers showed Hillary losing ground against all Republican contenders, and had some correlation with Rasmussen's numbers as well. Nonsense, came the response; Gallup's polling in November -- two weeks earlier -- showed Hillary maintaining her momentum.
Oops:
Though both candidates maintain their leads, Rudy Giuliani continues to lose support and Hillary Clinton drops nine points in Gallup's latest poll.
No text report has been posted by Gallup, but the trend for Hillary looks bad and seems to be accelerating. She had polled at 50% this summer, when she appeared invincible and her competition couldn't quit making mistakes. Now, after a gaffe-filled month capped by her attack on Barack Obama's kindergarten ambitions, Gallup has her at 39%, dropping eight points in a month.
The news doesn't look good for Rudy Giuliani, either. At one point at about where Hillary stands now, Giuliani has now fallen to 25% in a much more dynamic Republican field. Gallup now has Mike Huckabee in second place at 16%, up fro 2% this summer and heading upwards in a hurry. It's a statistical tie for second with Fred Thompson and John McCain both at 15% Mitt Romney drops to 12%, not encouraging for his national campaign to take the nomination.
There can be little doubt now -- Hillary's ship has begun to take on water. With negatives at 44%, two-thirds of which are tied to personality or character issues, she has been exposed as a major liability for the Democrats. Can they afford to dump her now -- and given the Clinton's ties to the party Establishment, is that even possible?
UPDATE: USA Today has the polling results, and they look even worse for Hillary. In 16 days, she dropped nine points overall. Obama, Edwards, Richardson, and Biden split Hillary's castoffs almost equally. She dropped eleven points in a month. Her negatives have gone from 44% in October to 50%, and now has a favorability deficit of -3, the worst since the beginning of summer.
It would be a free-fall, if the Democrats had a candidate who could take advantage of Hillary.
UPDATE II: Big thanks to Rush Limbaugh, who quoted from this post today.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on December 4, 2007 9:52 AM | Comments () | TrackBacks (4)
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