Saturday, May 21, 2005

You'll sneer at me, but I think this Fox News poll is basically honest, for reasons I'll explain below -- and it's showing some interesting (and somewhat dispiriting) results:

[A] poll of New York State voters tested four possible Republican challengers to [Hillary] Clinton in her upcoming race for re-election to the U.S. Senate, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (search) performs best -- coming within 10 percentage points of the incumbent (Clinton 53 percent and Giuliani 43 percent)....

Giuliani also has a slight 2-percentage point advantage over Sen. Clinton on presidential vote preference (compared to her 10-point advantage in the Senate race).


That's a striking result -- same candidates, same poll respondents, two very different outcomes.

Here are a few details:

Some interesting shifts happen within demographic groups on the Clinton-Giuliani vote the senate and presidential vote questions. Almost 6 in 10 women support Clinton over Giuliani in the senate race, but that drops to about half in the presidential race; however, Giuliani's share of the female vote doesn't increase as a result, but instead the Clinton-defectors move to the "undecided" column.

Similarly, among independents, Clinton's share of the vote for president is 10 points lower than for senate. Men are about eight points less likely to vote for her for president than for senator.


It's testosterone, obviously. People -- including those women who slip to "undecided" -- think of the presidency and just can't imagine anyone other than a "real man" (notwithstanding the multiple disasters of the current highly macho administration). Is this just 9/11, or is it that feminism really hasn't changed us all that much?

Yeah, it's a Fox poll. I don't think it's been jiggered, though -- if it had been, Hillary would be way out in front in both races (to open right-wing wallets) or struggling in both (to show the world that her transformation to well-liked stateswoman is a liberal fairytale).

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