Less than a week after getting into the race, Fred Thompson is on the verge of unseating Rudy Giuliani as the front runner, and he has only begun to scratch the surface.
Just today, CNN has released a poll that shows Fred now stands just one point behind former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani - well within the margin of error.
Fred's rise in the polls has also been noticed by John McIntyre of the Time-Blog.com. Renowned pollster Scott Rassmussen reports that Fred is already the GOP frontrunner.
No other candidate in this Republican Primary field has managed this sort of momentum indicating that Fred is the first real alternative for conservatives. I predict that several weeks from now, we will see better "satisfaction" numbers among GOP voters in opinion the field in the internals of the major polls.
Another sign that Fred is not yet polling as well as he will be is that his name ID is not as high as we had thought. Everyone knows his face from Law&Order and his movies, but as a supporting actor, he did not get "top billing" and hence lacks the same face and name association as other actors, like Tom Cruise.
Now that he does have top billing as the candidate and co-frontrunner, people will remember his face when he is being interviewed or shown on the TV news, and people will associate his name with his face, which means his numbers are only starting their upward climb.
The poll's internals demonstrate his surprisingly low name ID (for now) compared to Rudy Giuliani. CNN's Bill Schneider offers an interesting insight:
"The main reason Giuliani does better than Thompson [in head-to-head matchups] is that he's better known. Forty-seven percent of the public say they have never heard of Fred Thompson or have an opinion of him. Only 14 percent have no opinion of Rudy Giuliani."
Meanwhile, Giuliani, who had been stuck in the mid-30's for much of the year, is starting to watch his lead erode as reported by the Washington Post this morning.
Yes, things are going quite well for Fred at this point in the game. I think any other candidate in the field would love to trade places with him, including Rudy, who now hangs on because the pro-life and pro-2nd amendment vote is split four or more ways - for now.
1 comment:
Good post, Charles. It should be noted that his face is being plastered on much of Fred's campaign materials. His campaign bus and all of his bumperstickers have his face on it, which I am sure bolsters you point of people knowing his face but not yet associating it with his name.
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