Blue Crab Boulevard

Some Scary Numbers

Longtime readers know I am not a big fan of polls and polling in general. I personally think they are more valuable over time to watch trends than each, individual poll is since they represent a snapshot and tend to skew because of that. But I still look at them now and then if one looks interesting. This one does. A man who has not even formally entered the race and has relatively low name recognition right now is in the front of the pack overall. That would be Fred Thompson.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson has broad potential appeal among Republican voters even before his expected entrance into the presidential race. Thompson is not nearly as well known as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani or the other leading GOP candidates. But 37% of the Republican and Republican-leaning voters who have heard of Thompson say there is a "good chance" they will support him. This is equal to the level of support Giuliani receives from GOP voters who have heard of him, and reflects far more enthusiasm than any of the other Republican candidates garner.

Democratic voters continue to express somewhat more enthusiasm for their party's top-tier candidates than do Republicans, and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to draw the greatest potential support. The enthusiasm advantage Clinton enjoyed in February has all but disappeared, as the percentage of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters saying there is a good chance they would support her has dipped from 52% to 44%.

Support for Obama is unchanged from February; 40% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say there is a good chance they would vote for him. Former Vice President Al Gore has gained ground in recent months - 34% say there is a good chance they would vote for Gore today, up from 27% in February.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted May 30-June 3 among 1,503 adults, finds that overall voter engagement in the presidential campaign remains somewhat limited, despite intense press coverage of the race. Just 33% of all voters say they have given a lot of thought to the presidential candidates, up only modestly from December (27%). However, Republican voters have caught up with the Democrats in campaign engagement, after trailing in previous surveys.

By all means take a look at this report, it has a few very interesting bits. But I said when rumors started that Thompson might run that a lot of candidates - from either party - should be nervous. Heck, these numbers should terrify many of them. Correction, most of them - either party. Will these numbers hold? I'd be very surprised if there isn't a lot of shifting in the months to come. But a non-candidate who out-polls most of the field should be giving a lot of operatives ulcers right about now. And Hillary! Clinton's rapid erosion of support is not good for her.

I said Thompson's entry into the field would make it very interesting. I think it is right now.

Politics | Gaius Tuesday, 5 June , 2007

By curtis, Tuesday, 5 June , 2007 @ 6:09 pm

He’s got my vote. He supports the larger and smaller war(like all the non ron paul GOP candidates).So far he’s the only one to call BS on the religion of global warming(Algore replaces Marx as high priest, same politics).Mitt is a good man but I haven’t heard him say anything calling the new religion a farce.
By The Anchoress, Tuesday, 5 June , 2007 @ 6:14 pm

Actually, I’m more worried about the fact that some people are already completely committed to this man on the basis of a few articles and one very slick video response to Michael Moore. Slick is the word. All I’ve seen of Thompson so far is that he’s as Slick as Clinton, that he likes to play head games like Clinton, he can engender unreasonable loyalty like Clinton and he likes a good see-gar like Clinton. He also loved McCain-Feingold. All reasons enough to make me very wary of Fred.
By Gaius, Tuesday, 5 June , 2007 @ 6:23 pm

I’m waiting to see how he really stands on a number of things, myself. But watching this is fascinating. He really is running a heck of a campaign if he’s pulling these kinds of numbers - without running a campaign, officially.
By Guy Zino, Tuesday, 5 June , 2007 @ 9:38 pm

I want to see him in a debate before I decide. I want to see if he will be a man who will pull us back from the leftward drift of this country (Dubya was no help there), call Gore’s stupid Global Warming fixation for what it is, a fraud, secure our borders and then deal with the illegals, and understand that the war on terrorism is the war of the millenia and one that there can be no equivocation on our winning.

By the way. Why doesn’t anyone tout the Fair Tax? This would save our economy and boost it into an affluence, the planet has yet to see.