The New Quinnipiac Poll: Good News for Republicans and Terrible News for Hillary
Quinnipiac is out with a new set
of polls and it’s good news for the Republicans and very bad news for
Hillary Clinton.
What the polls show is that Rudy
Giuliani leads Clinton in the key swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania,
and Florida, while John McCain leads in the first two and is tied with
Clinton in Florida. Since the Democrats need to win at least two of
these three to win the presidency – and perhaps all three – this
is terrible news for Clinton. It’s especially depressing when one
considers that Ohio was considered to be leaning to the Democrats –
after a strong Dem showing in the ’06 elections.
There’s an additional reason – beyond the results themselves – why this
hurts Clinton. NBC News and the Wall Street Journal also came out with
a poll this week that showed that 39% of the Democratic respondents – a
plurality – felt that Hillary has the party’s best chance to win the
presidency. As a factual matter, at least now, this is clearly
incorrect and the Quinnipiac poll shows it. Obama might be a stronger
candidate (he isn’t now but he has much more to room to grow than
Hillary because he is still relatively unknown). But Edwards would
almost definitely be stronger than Hillary because he doesn’t have her
negatives and he would be competitive in border states such as Virginia
and North Carolina.
In other words, when
Democratic voters slowly come to the realization that Hillary is not
their strongest candidate for the fall campaign, her support will
likely dissipate further.
