Thoughts on Recent Polls

The most recent Rassmussen polls have put Huck in first place nationally at about 20% with Rudy sinking into second at about 18%. Fred, Mitt and McCain are all essentially tied at 11-12%. By the way, that is only about 75%--there is a lot of undecided out there.

First, this is the lowest that Rudy has been since the tracking polls started at the beginning of October. This is good. People have turned from the "only Rudy is electable", which has really been his only real claim to why Republicans should vote for him. Recent polls showing all of the top teer Republicans polling ahead of Hillary was actually bad news for Rudy.

Second, this is the highest that Huck has ever been and he has only been going up since coming into the "first teer". This means that it is time for Huck to have his pulling down. The difference is that it seems that it has to be the candidates that do this pull-down. The media seems only somewhat interested in participating even though they have been quite active about pulling down Fred, McCain and to a lesser degree Mitt. In other words, the media has been rooting for "moderates" (aka more liberal).

It is not a question of whether or not Huck gets pulled down, but rather when. And when he does get pulled down, where does the support go? Mitt has positioned himself to try to catch the religious vote. Fred is pressing on the fiscal and generally conservative vote. I do not think that the support that is currently going from Rudy to Huck will return to Rudy. When you leave someone, why would you go back to that person? I think that Mitt has been so visible and known at least to the early state folk that if people were going to move to him, they would have done so already. So I think Fred has a good opportunity to pick up on Huck's support WHEN those people learn the silliness of his positions.