Two Views On Who Fred Thompson Hurts

The truth is, no one really knows from whom Fred Thompson will steal votes once he enters the presidential race. And we're especially clueless about the second-degree effects of his candidacy.

Thompson's polling firm, McLaughlin and Associates, finds that Thompson wins the support of 18 percent of the Republican primary electorate today, stealing almost all of his votes from Rudy Giuliani.

Among moderate Republicans, Thompson’s support has increased by 14 points (4% to 18%), while Giuliani’s support has decreased significantly (37% to 29%). McCain (19% to 16%) and Romney (8% to 3%) have also lost support among moderate Republicans. Giuliani shows a slight loss among conservative Republicans (25% to 22%), while Thompson (16% to 18%), McCain (14% to 16%) and Romney (8% to 10%) show slight gains.

Note: "For the subsample of 350 Republicans, the accuracy is +5.2% at a 95% confidence interval."

A new Cook Political Report/RT Strategies survey comes to much the same conclusion: Giuliani quickly loses about 5 percent of his support overall and 6 percent of his support among men. Thompson picks up votes in the South and the West, stealing support, weirdly, from Tommy Thompson.

They surveyed 662 Republicans and Republican leaners -- that's a margin of error of +/- 3.8%.

Political chatter -- conventional wisdom -- suggests that most folks believe that Mitt Romney will wind up hurting the most in the end because Thompson will steal votes from him that he otherwise might have gotten. But that's just a guess based on one variable: both are appealing to conservatives. But Thompson seems to be attracting moderates as well.

Comments

My husband and I are backing Fred Thompson for President. I understand that people can only speculate that Thompson will end up hurting Romney during the election. I would have to agree with that assessment based on my own personal reasons.

We were leaning towards Mitt Romney as a candidate - until we heard that Thompson unofficially entered the race.

If Thompson does not run for whatever reason, we'll vote for Romney. If Thompson announces over the summer, (and it sounds more and more like he will) then he will receive our continued support and our votes.

Posted by Renee Daley | June 7, 2007 12:56 AM

If the GOP isn't going to put up a conservative candidate, I'm not going to hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils like I did in 2004 and 2008. Nor will I vote for a phony conservative like Romney. Unless Fred gets the nomination, I'll be in the "too disgusted with the Republican choices to vote at all" category. Let America have a President Hillary. It'll serve 'em right.

Posted by Gern Blansten | June 7, 2007 9:53 PM