The General Election

General election polls taken this early aren't worth much, but here they are for your prurient interest.

The Democracy Corps survey aggregated 4,000 interviews conducted over a 4 month period ending in early August and found that Democrats had a 12 point (51% to 39%) lead in a generic Presidential ballot.

---

Here are a series of "general election" matchups between the leading Democratic and Republican candidates.  [These results are based on recent averages or most recent single polls, if average not available.  Source: RealClearPolitics.com]

---

In an aggregate of Gallup interviews done during June/July 2007, voters split evenly, 48%/48%, in a matchup between Clinton and Giuliani.  When looked at through the prism of church attendance, Giuliani wins among those who attend church weekly and Clinton wins among those who seldom/never go to church.

---

Potential voters who have a current choice in hypothetical general election matchups, as well as those who do not have a current choice, were asked whether they would vote for a 3rd Party candidate.  59% said no, 22% said yes, and 20% were unsure.

When faced with Michael Bloomberg as a candidate, 82% said they would not vote for him.  [GWU Battleground Poll 7/07]

---

In mid-August, Karl Rove gave a series of interviews following his announcement that he was going to shortly leave the Administration.

Among the things he said about Hillary Clinton, were "There is no front-runner who has entered the primary season with negatives as high as she has in the history of modern polling."

"She enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup Poll."

He added that, as a result, she was "fatally flawed" in her quest for election to the Presidency.

Shortly thereafter, the Gallup Organization put out one of its regular briefing memos with the intention of dealing with the Rove assertions.

Among other things, Gallup wrote, "Clinton's current unfavorable ratings are in reality not much different from what other past candidates have had in the year they won election. Second, her image has been more negative than positive several other times during the past 15 years, but often has recovered and could do it again.  Last, despite Clinton's high unfavorables, she remains competitive with the Republican candidates in Gallup's Presidential test elections."

Here are some comparisons noted by Gallup.

Return to Home Page