Poll: Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani Remain in the Lead; Lower Tier Candidates Moving Up

The latest Zogby poll looks at the Democratic and Republican races on a national basis over the course of five polls they have taken: May 20, July 14, Sept. 16, Oct. 14, and the latest one on Nov. 17 and it shows just how much of a roller coaster ride it can be.

Back on May 20, New York Senator Hillary Clinton came in with 39%. In July she slipped down to 37% and then slipped another 2% to 35% in September. Then in October, she saw her highest level of support at 46% and right now, she is just about back where she started at 39%.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama has not had a broad range of differences as has Clintion He has remained in second place all along and has a net gain of 3% Back in May he had 24%, moved up to 25% in July, had his worse level of support in September at 21%, bounced back to 25% in October and is now at his highest at 27%. Since Clinton is back to her beginning figures and there is not much of a change with the rest of the candidates, his 3% gain has come from the voters who were once on the fence, picking him as their candidate.

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards is the only other candidate who has ever received more than 10% support. He has an overall gain of 2%. In the first and second poll, he had the exact same 11%. In the third one, he dropped down to 10%, dropped again to 9% and has now bounced back to his highest level of support at 13%.

While his figures have remained the basically the same, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is now 1% higher than it was at the beginning. He started out at 2%, had two consecutive 3% polls, dropped down to 2% again and is now back at 3%.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich had gained 1%, starting out at 1%, going to 2% for the next two polls, then hitting his highest at 3% and now is back to 2%.

Delaware Senator Joe Biden is at the same place now that he was at the beginning. He started out at 2%, slipped to 1%, hit his highest at 4% and has been back at 2% for the last two polls.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel have never gotten over 1%.

The voters who say they do not like any of the candidates and would like to see someone else on the ballot has dropped from 3% at the beginning to 2% now.

And the undecided voters have dropped an overall 3% from 17% in May to 14% now.

On the Republican side, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been in the lead all the way, but the figures are much closer together than they are in the Democratic field. Giuliani started out at 26%, dropped to 21%, and has been climbing ever since to 27%, then 28% and now 29%.

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson has been on a real roller coaster ride, starting out at 10%, had two increases to 22% and then to 24%, then started back down first to 20% and now at 15%.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has made a huge jump over the last two polls. He started out at 4%, went up to 5%, dropped down to 3%, went back to where he began at 4% and is now at his highest level of 11%

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has an overall loss of 1%, starting out at 10%, moving up to 11%, dropping to his lowest of 7%, bouncing back to his highest at 14% and now settling at 9%.

Arizona Senator John McCain has gone from 13%, down to 9%, back up to 13%, down to 8% and is now at 9%, and overall loss of 4%.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has shown a steady increase starting out at less than 1%, hitting the 1% mark, then 2% 3% and now his highest at 5%.

California Congressman Duncan Hunter has remained at 1% all along with the exception of one poll where he was below 1%.

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo started out below 1%, rose to 2%, dropped to 1%, went below 1% again and is now back at 1%.

The number of voters who did not like any of the candidates and wanted another choice has dropped from 4% at the beginning to 1% now and the number who were undecided has dropped from 26% to 21%.

The President's job approval rating has come back to a positive of 27%, negative of 71%. The approval rate for Congress is 11% and it is the same for both Democrats and Republicans. The independents give Congress an approval rating of 9%.

Source: Zogby http://www.zogby.com/