The latest Rasmussen poll shows that, while he maintains a lead over Mitt Romney, John McCain is being hurt by the surge of independent voters to Barack Obama:
John McCain is facing an unusual two-front challenge as he seeks to hang on to a narrow lead in New Hampshire’s Republican Presidential Primary. He is competing with Mitt Romney for votes in the Republican Primary. At the same time, he is competing with Barack Obama for Independent voters who can choose to vote in either the Republican or the Democratic Primary on Tuesday.
At the moment, he is losing ground to Obama which is causing him problems with Romney. On Friday, the Rasmussen Reports survey found that Independent voters were likely to make up 32% of the Republican Primary electorate. That dropped to 27% of Sunday. As a result, McCain’s lead over Romney has dipped to a statistically insignificant one-point advantage.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in New Hampshire shows John McCain earning 32% of the vote while Mitt Romney attracts 31%.
The survey was conducted on Saturday and Sunday. All interviews were conducted before Sunday night’s debate. Romney leads by five percentage points among Republicans while McCain leads by thirteen among Independents likely to take part.
The current poll shows Mike Huckabee with 11% of the vote, Rudy Giuliani close behind at 10%, and Ron Paul at 8%. Fred Thompson earns 3%, some other candidate attracts 2%, and 4% are not sure.
I still think that McCain will beat Romney tomorrow, but it may end up being a lot closer than originally thought if the independents go for Obama.
Independents are key to both Obama and McCain and I think only one of them can win their party’s primary tomorrow.
[...] Scott wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptJohn McCain is facing an unusual two-front challenge as he seeks to hang on to a narrow lead in New Hampshire’s Republican Presidential Primary. He is competing with Mitt Romney for votes in the Republican Primary. At the same time, … [...]