Rudy Giuliani Beats Hillary Clinton and John Edwards

In a poll conducted February 21-22, 2007, of 800 likely voters, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) leads New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D), by a margin of 52% to 43%. This continued an upward trend for Giuliani over the last few months. In the same poll in January, he held a six-point lead over the Senator from New York, and in December of last year his lead was four percentage points.

Similarly, in a match-up between Giuliani and John Edwards (D), former Senator from North Carolina, the Republican again leads, but by a smaller margin of 46% to 44%.

Among Republicans, Giuliani holds a substantial advantage, leading Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), 33% to 19%. This lead is identical to his advantage last week, and six points higher than the lead he held a month ago.

In addition to those head-to-head match-ups with both Republican and Democratic hopefuls, Giuliani has solidified his lead not only as the most popular Republican candidate, but as the most popular candidate among all presidential hopefuls, Democrat or Republican.

When survey respondents were asked their opinions of the various candidates - favorable or unfavorable - Giuliani again leads by a wide margin. Giuliani's favorable rating is an astonishing 70%, while only 27% of respondents view him unfavorably. Contrast that to Hillary Clinton's numbers, which have her at 52% favorable, but a nearly identical 47% of respondents view the Senator unfavorably.

On the Republican side, John McCain has similar positive numbers to Clinton - 54% - but only 38% view the "maverick" Senator unfavorably.

On the Democratic side, John Edwards and Al Gore poll relatively the same. Both received positive ratings of nearly 50% (Edwards at 49% and Gore at 50%), while Gore scored worse in the unfavorable category - 47% to Edwards' 43%. Barack Obama, on the other hand, also had a 50% favorable rating, but his unfavorable rating was a mere 34%, lowest of all candidates aside from Giuliani.