Giuliani, Clinton Increase Their Leads

The internet is making it so easy to keep track of everything Americans keep track of, and that is just about everything. Before the internet became the main source of information, whatever that information is, it would take days if not a week for a poll or survey to make the rounds of the public and by the time it did, it was out dated.

It is so easy to do now, that Rasmussen Reports runs a daily Presidential tracking poll, where you can keep up on the results as often as you want.

The latest poll is from Friday, and here is how the candidates stand:

Giuliani now has a 1% lead over the candidate who is not an official candidate, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson. When they polled Republicans who said they were likely to vote in the primary, Giuliani comes in with 26%, former Thompson comes in with 25%. The rest of the field is far behind, with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney coming in third with 12%, Arizona Senator John McCain is next with 10% followed by Mike Huckabee with 25 and the rest of the candidates, Sam Brownback, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Tommy Thompson share 5% between them. There are 20% who say they are undecided.

When they asked all of the voters combined their opinion of the Republican candidates, Giuliani got a 56% favorable rating and a 37% unfavorable one. Thompson gets a 46% favorable one and a 26% unfavorable.

With Republicans, Giuliani gets a favorable rating of 76% and Thompson 64%. Breaking the results down even further Giuliani gets a 67% favorable rating and a 26% unfavorable rating from conservatives. As for Thompson, he gets 625 favorable and 16% unfavorable from conservatives.

On the Democratic side, Clinton has increased her lead over Barack Obama by another percentage point, bringing her support from voters likely to vote in the Democratic primary bringing her to 42% over Obama who comes in with 23%. She has shown a steady increase in the poll for the last week. Coming in third, is former Senator John Edwards with 14%, Senator Joe Biden with 3%, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson with 2%.

While Clinton has a large lead in the Democratic primary race, Obama does better in head to head competition with the leading Republican candidates. But there is one thing to keep in mind with that type of poll and that is they ask all voters, no matter what their affiliation and also include independents, so when it comes to the general election, the voters from the third parties and the independents are more likely to vote for their party's nominee. Independents could go any with way, especially if there is a popular independent candidate.

Source Rasmussen reports http://www.rasmussenreports.com/