Rudy and conservatives

I've had two conversations about Rudy Giuliani recently with a couple conservative Republicans, and read this article in Politico on the revolt of social conservatives against Giuliani.

The first was favorable to Rudy, but admitted that her support was basically ethnic and regional identification with him, and actually felt apologetic about supporting him. The second woke me up from my dogmatic slumber: there was laughter and contempt for the idea that Giuliani could win the Republican nomination.

I think that Giuliani is a candidate who is similar to McCain, for whom, as I said below, it's only an inside-the-beltway illusion that he could be the Republican nominee.

Giuliani's press, at least on the internet, certainly details his shortcomings as a candidate, as detailed by this blog at least. Yet Giuliani is leading in the polls, so shouldn't he be seen as the front runner?

Let's take a closer look. In this recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 29% of Republicans said they'd vote for Giuliani, 20% for Fred Thompson, and 14% apeice for McCain and Romney. The crucial question is, what do they mean by "Republicans"? The answer is: the broadest possible definition. Here's the two filter questions to determine this category:

Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a Democrat, a Republican, an independent, or something else? (IF "DEMOCRAT" OR "REPUBLICAN," ASK:) Would you call yourself a strong (Democrat/Republican) or not a very strong (Democrat/Republican)? (IF NOT SURE, CODE AS "NOT VERY STRONG DEMOCRAT/REPUBLICAN.") (IF "INDEPENDENT," ASK:) Do you think of yourself as closer to the Republican Party, closer to the Democratic Party, or do you think of yourself as strictly independent?

Strong Democrat ............................... 23

Not very strong Democrat.................... 8

Independent/lean Democrat .............. 12

At this point these Democrats (including the leaners) are shunted off to to questions about their potential nominees. Here's the Republicans:

Independent/lean Republican........... 11

Not very strong Republican ............... 7

Strong Republican............................ 14

The final categories were:

Other .............................................. 4

Not sure/nothing ............................ 2

Strictly independent......................... 19

These respondents are then asked the following:

If there were a presidential primary election in your state, would you vote in the Democratic primary, the Republican primary, or would you wait to vote in the general election?

Vote in the Democratic primary ......... 22

Vote in the Republican primary ......... 11

Wait until the general election ........... 59

None/other ............................. 4

Not sure ............................................ 4

So 11% of this last category is then included as well. That's a lot of Republicans. 21% of the sample said they were Republicans on the first question. 11% said Independent, but were included as Republicans because they leaned Republican. About 2.5% more were included, even though they self-identified as pure Independents or unsure or other, because they said they would vote in their Republican primary.

So we're over one-third of the U.S. population. That's a huge swath of people in the sample's target population. It picks up people who are informed and uniformed, motivated and unmotivated. And it's the motivated portion of the Republican primary electorate that will make the difference in early 2008. The poll does not give us the cross tabulations to give nuance to the analysis--this is typical of media polls. That means its pablum for the masses, as one blogger put it.

There's a recent LA Times/Bloomberg poll where there's a little bit more of a breakdown. Amongst all Republican primary voters, Giuliani is up 27% to Fred Thomson's 21%, McCain's 12% and Romney's 10%.

In this poll, Giuliani's support includes 31% of self-identified independents who would vote in a Republican primary, 24% of conservative republicans, and 12% of religious republicans. The maddening thing is that the report does not include the marginals, so we don't know how large these categories are.

The same pattern shows up in this Gallup poll from the end of April (when Giuliani was polling higher than he is now). Giuliani won 31% of conservative republicans and 41% of moderate/liberal republicans. His support declines with religiosity: 40% support amongst non-churchgoers, 36% amongst monthly churchgoers, and 29% for weekly churchgoers. His support also drops off with older age groups: 41% support for 18 to 29-year-olds, 36% for 30 to 49-year-olds, 34% for 50 to 64-year-olds, and 28% for 65-and-up. Again, Gallup does not give us the marginals on these categories. But we know that turnout goes up with religiosity and age--older people and frequent churchgoers are more likely to vote than young people and non-churchgoers.

McCain was the other major candidate in this poll to win less conservative Republican support than moderate/liberal. It was reversed for Fred Thomson and Mitt Romney. For years McCain has been the whipping-boy for die-hard conservatives, while Giuliani is a relatively new commodity when it comes to the conservative credentials of his issue positions.

In order to gauge the impact of this, we need to see some push questions asking Republican voters how they would support the candidates if they knew some of their positions. (Push questions are a vital part of campaign polls, though not of media polls. Stuart Rothenberg gave a good defense of them last week.) A couple interesting ones can be found in this poll from the Washington Post/ABC News. Here's the first question:

Giuliani has been a supporter of legal abortion and gay civil unions. Does this make you (more likely) to vote for him for the Republican nomination for president, (less likely), or doesn't it make a difference in your vote?

• 6/1/07 More ... 7%, Less ... 50%, Does not make a difference ... 43%
• 2/25/07 More ... 10%, Less ... 46%, Does not make a difference ... 43%

The people who responded "Less Likely" were then asked:

Given his position on abortion and gay civil unions, is there a chance you'd vote for Giuliani for the Republican nomination for president, or no chance?

• 6/1/07 Chance ... 33%, No Chance ... 67%
• 2/25/07 Chance ... 49%, No Chance ... 49%

So according to these polls, around 25% of all Republicans, when informed of his positions, would never vote for him. This is a lot more suggestive to me than the numbers referred to by the Mystery Pollster, Mark Blumenthal, which places McCain, Gingrich, Romney and Brownback ahead of Giuliani on the question to Republicans as to whom they would "definitely not vote for" in the primary.

Also in the WashPost/ABC poll, Giuliani's support broke down as follows: 36% "Strongly Support," and 63% "Somewhat Support."

So from what we can gather, I think Giuliani's support is not from the type of voters who will in the end probably have their way in the Republican primary. Giuliani is not the front-runner. He's a long shot.