On the GOP side
John McCain 31% Mitt Romney 26% Ron Paul 14% Mike Huckabee 11% Rudy Giuliani 8% Fred Thompson 5%
Not the big shocker but some surprises none the less. RP is statistically tied with the Huckster and is soundly trouncing Fred and Rudy. You have to ask how is Huck going to do if he loses to Ron Paul here ?
McCain still has a solid edge over Romney. If Romney doesn't gain in the debates expect John McCain to beat him. This will give Romney two losses in a row. With more showing up in Nevada and Florida.
Barack Obama 37% Hillary Clinton 27% John Edwards 19% Bill Richardson 8% Dennis Kucinich 3% Mike Gravel 1%
WOW!!!! Obama has a ten point lead over Shrillary. Thats just mind numbing. NH is supposed to be Clinton country. You would never know it from these polls. While Hillary has a healthy lead over Edwards, if she dukes it out with Obama, you could get a repeat of Iowa with her coming in third. What would come next is anybody's guess my money would be on Hillary unleashing the equivalent of a nuclear strike on Obama and throwing all the mud she can get on him out the Clinton files and the Illinois Democrat Machine.
Given that the Rasmussen Numbers were so Jaw Dropping I wanted to find some other sources. From the Washington Post.
Jan. 4-5 Dec. 27-30 Dec. 13-17 Dec. 6-1
2008 2007 2007 2007
Clinton 33% 34% 38% 31%
Obama 33% 30% 26% 30%
Edwards 20% 17% 14% 16%
Richardson 4% 5% 8% 7%
Kucinich 2% 2% 2% 3%
Gravel 0 0 0 *
Someone else 1% * 1% *
No opinion 7% 8% 8% 10%
You can see Clinton is in the throws of downward trend. Edwards and Obama are experiencing a momentum surge. Its definitely looking like Shrill Hill gets knocked out here.
It would be lovely if NH was the end of the road for Hillary, but I don't see her dropping out even if she does poorly -- you're probably right that we'll start to see some serious attacks on Obama at that point.
If Edwards performs like he's polling I think we can write him off. Actually in my opinion he needed to win Iowa to have a real chance.
On the GOP side I figure NH is the best fit for Paul and really 14% is not that good for such a libertarian-friendly state. That also explains the hostility towards Huckabee. I don't think NH is very reflective of the national GOP race, certainly less so than on the Dem side. Still, another Romney loss and the endless media coverage of same will certainly hurt his chances, and another Giuliani no-show isn't going to do anything to revitalize him.
The one that really stuns me is Thompson polling so low. I would have figured he'd do well in NH and after doing reasonably well in Iowa I'm surprised he's at only 5%. Maybe by Tuesday he will do better. A possibility is that he and McCain draw from the same general pool of supporters and for whatever reason it's all going to McCain in NH but is more evenly split elsewhere. If this is true, then whichever one of them drops out could impact the race by endorsing the other. Their policies aren't a perfect match but they're a lot closer than say Giuliani and Huckabee, so this may be a natural tactical and strategic alliance, with a VP or other cabinet position waiting at the end.
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