Poll: Huckabee, Hillary Lead In South Carolina
The new CNN poll in South Carolina shows Mike Huckabee leading in the Republican primary with 24% supporter, followed by Fred Thompson at 17%, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney at 16% each, and John McCain with 13%.
For some context: In the last CNN poll here in July, Huckabee was at only 3%, and Rudy Giuliani was at 30%.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads with 42%, with Barack Obama at 34% and John Edwards at 16%.
Comments (10)
DTM wrote on December 14, 2007 9:50 AM:Providing the missing context on the Democratic side, since the July CNN poll of SC that is Clinton down 1, Obama up 7, Edwards down 1.
Desider wrote on December 14, 2007 9:59 AM:So does that mean Hillary or Obama's inevitable there? Hillary may be having some trouble in NH & Iowa, but projections of nationwide collapse is a bit premature.
Matt wrote on December 14, 2007 10:01 AM:Will Edwards likely stick around until SC if he disappoints in Iowa?
DTM wrote on December 14, 2007 10:16 AM:Desider,
As an aside, I think it might be a good idea to come up with more categories than inevitable or not inevitable.
Anyway, I agree "collapse" would be far too strong. Rather, overall what we are seeing is a negative trend for Clinton and a positive trend for Obama, and this poll is consistent with that picture.
Of course if you project those two trends out indefinitely, Clinton will eventually be in a losing position. So, the basic issue is that if she wants to win, she has to either change those trends, or at least slow them down to the point she makes it to the various elections with her leads intact.
By the way, the problem with the last strategy (just trying to slow things down and hold onto her leads) is that polls tend to get more volatile, not less volatile, as elections approach, and in this case in particular we know the early states can have dramatic momentum effects on the later states. So, it is pretty unlikely things will slow down.
DTM wrote on December 14, 2007 10:29 AM:Matt,
I think it depends in part on what you would count as a disappointment in Iowa, and what then happens in NH.
For example, relative to where he started at the beginning of 2007, anything but winning Iowa outright would probably be a disappoint for Edwards. But relative to where he was in, say, October, a second place finish would be a positive "surprise" (although I don't think a lot of people would be all that surprised in the literal sense).
And I don't think people really know what will happen in NH after Iowa in a situation where Edwards is second to either Clinton or Obama. That is because a lot of the support in NH for the people who finish third or worse in Iowa may end up reallocating, and it is not clear where it would go (historically it certainly does not always go to the Iowa winner, but sometimes it does, which basically means history is not much use).
Indeed, even if Edwards finished second in Iowa and then also second in NH, it is possible he could gain momentum simply by doing better in NH than currently expected. That is basically what happened with McGovern in 1972: he finished second to Muskie in Iowa, then a closer second to Muskie in NH, and that was enough to give McGovern the momentum he needed to win the nomination.
In short, I think a lot is possible for Edwards simply because he remains a solid third pretty much everywhere right now, which means with some momentum he could potentially move into second and then first. He probably does need to do better than third in Iowa, however, to make that happen.
Charlie wrote on December 14, 2007 11:36 AM:According to this CNN poll, Ron Paul is at 11% in South Carolina -- just 6% behind Fred Thompson who is in 2nd place. Isn't that newsworthy? Shouldn't it be worth nothing that an obscure Texas Congressman who everyone in the puditocracy has written off as a "fringe long-shot" now is polling in the double-digits, and raising more money than any of his competitors? Guess not.
Desider wrote on December 14, 2007 11:48 AM:DTM,
With Super Tuesday 1 1/2 months away, realistically the pressure is on Obama to move all those other states. Sure, it's possible that Hillary support could collapse nation wide after Iowa & New Hampshire, but that was more relevant for Dean last time when he'd put all his bets on those states. Having huge leads in states like New York and California and Texas, Hillary's position is hugely different.
But yes, "invevitable and uninevitable" (or "evitable?") are not the most illuminating categories.
DTM wrote on December 14, 2007 12:25 PM:Desider,
Sure, if Super Tuesday were actually tomorrow and not in 1 1/2 months, the polls would be indicating that Obama would very likely lose. So in that sense, he obviously does need those numbers to be different by that time.
But of course the numbers are already changing in Obama's favor, and have been since around mid-late October (you can actually see that on pollster's National chart for the Democats, now handily on this very website).
So even holding aside the early states, it is not at all clear where the numbers would be by Super Tuesday. And of course we can't hold aside the early states, because history says that they are likely to have some effect on the later states.
To be clear, I have no idea where all this is going to end up (I wouldn't even dare to pick the order of finish in Iowa at this point). I was just noting that while the current numbers favor Clinton, the current trends favor Obama. And that basically means neither can afford to settle for the status quo.
kjoe wrote on December 14, 2007 2:04 PM:Trends are more significant than raw numbers sometimes---some are claiming an Oprah backlash with this. But it is cnn--it smells like a quickie do-over.
I would imagine Hillary's campaign is counting heavily on help from Wolf Blitzer in the last debate before super-Tuesday----speaking of backlash----you might have gotten a preview yesterday of how capable Barack could be at nailing Blitzer for sheer idiocy in that very crucial debate.
votenic wrote on December 14, 2007 2:16 PM:2008 Presidential Election Weekly Poll
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