I’ve been assuming for months that Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign would start to falter, as more Americans heard about his tarnished 9/11 halo, his megalomaniacal tendencies, his shameless exaggerations, and for GOP primary voters, his beliefs on practically every social issue they care about (abortion, gays, immigration, guns, and stem-cell research). And yet, where’s the collapse? Where’s the long-anticipated free-fall? Why is Giuliani still leading in national polls?
As it turns out, the collapse took longer than I’d hoped, but it’s just starting to happen.
For example, there’s the new WaPo/ABC national poll, which noted Giuliani’s “dramatic erosion in his support.”
Giuliani’s support dropped from 37 percent in a July poll to 28 percent in the latest survey, and his decline from February has been even more sharp. Then, he had the backing of 53 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and had a better than 2 to 1 advantage over his closest rival. […]
Over the past two months, Giuliani has suffered sharp declines in support among women and self-identified Republicans. In July, he was the first choice of 40 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of women. The new poll showed that 28 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of women back his candidacy.
Giuliani now stands at his lowest point yet among mainline Republicans, men, conservatives and white evangelical Protestants. Until now, the former mayor had led his rivals for the nomination among these evangelicals; now 29 percent support Thompson, while 25 percent support Giuliani.
There’s the new LAT/Bloomberg poll, which notes that Giuliani is “weaker in the crucial states that will cast early votes in the nominating process next year.” The former mayor now trails Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire, and Thompson in South Carolina.
But the new NYT/CBS poll may be the most discouraging of all for Giuliani.
Republican voters say Rudolph W. Giuliani has strong leadership qualities, and they associate him closely with his handling of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but those impressions have not translated into a substantial advantage over his party’s other presidential candidates when it comes to who can best fight terrorism, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Nearly half of Republican primary voters in the poll did not know Mr. Giuliani’s position on abortion — he supports abortion rights — suggesting that he could be vulnerable among conservatives because of his positions on social issues. And many voters said that Mr. Giuliani’s experience as mayor of New York City, which he consistently trumpets, limited his ability to understand their needs and concerns and was not as good a background for the presidency as having been a governor or a senator.
Ouch.
In fact, looking through the internals (.pdf), the news is almost entirely bad for Giuliani. A majority of Republicans believe candidates should be judged on “both their political record and their personal life,” which isn’t encouraging for the serial adulterer and divorcee; his national support has dropped from 38% to 27% in about a month; and 61% of Republicans said Giuliani would be no better than the other Republicans in the race at fighting terrorism.
Obviously, there’s all kinds of time for the race to change (and change back, and change again), but Giuliani is starting the post-Labor Day cycle with a decidedly downward trend.
If he were a stock, I’d short him in a heartbeat.