Rudy Giuliani’s advisers announced in November that they would rely on a decisive victory in Florida to rocket him toward the Republican nomination for president. That dream of orange-tinged momentum conquering all may be over if the snapshot presented by the latest Rasmussen poll is reliable.
Rasmussen puts Giuliani in third place in Florida, behind Mitt Romney at second and Mike Huckabee in first place. Huckabee gets 27% of voters, and Giuliani now only wins over 19%.
It would appear that news of the “shag fund” has taken Giuliani down a peg. At last voters who were formerly able to overlook the former New York City Mayor’s past peccadilloes believe that his purported security credentials are less important than the scandals left in his wake. Combined with the state’s religious conservatives thinking they have finally found their man in Huckabee, it’s awful, awful news for Giuliani.
If there is any silver-lining here, it’s that Rasmussen says that less than half of the voters are certain that Huckabee or Romney (or anyone else for that matter) are their final picks, and for 18% of the voters who said they had a second choice, Giuliani was their man.
But it sounds like Giuliani is going to have to fight like hell if he’s going to get Florida’s voters back on his side. He’s got no shot of winning in Iowa or New Hampshire, and dropping Florida would represent a complete implosion of his strategy.
3 Responses to “Florida fade out for Giuliani?”
This is pretty good news for Romney. Unlike the rest of the field, he actually has a path to the nomination: use his superior Iowa organisation to exceed now-lowered expectations and come within a couple of points of Huckabee, which coupled with an NH victory would make him the anti-Huckabee — this poll suggests voters are already starting to give him a hard second look in other states as Giuliani fades.
If Rudy can’t take Florida all he has is the Middle Atlantic States, perhaps a bit of the metropolitan Midwest, and maybe California. If Huckabee takes Florida he’ll likely have a complete sweep of the Southeast.
Now I know this will upset quite a few Rudy and Mitt supporters, but a lot of people were backing Rudy just to block Mitt. Huckabee may not be the perfect conservative candidate, but they find it a lot easier to forgive a Southern Baptist minister his past transgressions than lug Rudy’s luggage or to accept, (and I’ll say this as delicately and politically correct as possible) Mitt’s theological uniqueness.
Something to say?
Huckabee gets 27% of voters, and Giuliani now only wins over 19%.
The good news for Rudy is that his number does have components of 9/11 in it.
Left by David Dayen
December 14, 2007 at 4:39pm