Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani, virtually tied with John McCain in a January poll, held a 25-point lead over the Arizona senator in a Newsweek magazine survey released on Saturday. Among registered Republicans, 59 percent said they backed the former New York City mayor and 34 percent said they favored McCain, who announced on Wednesday he would seek the presidency in 2008, Newsweek said. "Most registered Republicans are not familiar with Giuliani's positions on key social issues," the magazine said, listing his support for abortion rights and gun control as examples. "When asked about whether Giuliani's views on these same issues would be enough to prevent them from supporting him, few registered Republican voters said it would," it said.
Giuliani was in a statistical dead heat with McCain in a January 24-25 poll, with 48 percent compared to McCain's 44 percent, the magazine said.
Meanwhile, a Newsweek poll of registered Democrats showed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama chipping away at front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead in the past month. Clinton enjoyed the support of 52 percent of registered Democrats in the latest poll to Obama's 38 percent. That compared with 55 percent for Clinton and 35 percent for the Illinois senator in late January, Newsweek said. |