Giuliani's stock dropping

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

Enduring the worst week of his presidential campaign, Rudy Giuliani's stock is beginning to plummet in national polls, none more than the Rasmussen Reports daily tracking survey, which today reported that Giuliani has dropped from clear-cut national leader to a tie with surging Mike Huckabee.

Over the past four nights, Rasmussen's survey shows Giuliani losing 9 percentage points -- fully one-third of his national support. Rasmussen has been issuing daily tracking polls, based on a four-night rolling sample, since July. A USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday showed Giuliani dropping nine percentage points in the past month but maintaining his national lead.

National polls are considered less important than surveys in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, but for Giuliani, the precipitous plunge in Rasmussen's tracking follows his wobbly performance in last week's Republican debate in Florida and several days of unflattering coverage about records of police security detail expenses buried in obscure agencies and linked to extramarital trysts while he was mayor of New York City.

According to Rasmussen, Giuliani's support has dropped from 27 percent to 18 percent over the four nights of surveying a total of about 600 likely Republican voters, decreasing three percentage points the first day and two each of the next three days.

Over the same period, Huckabee jumped from 13 percent to 18 percent. They led a three-man pack of John McCain at 14 percent, Fred Thompson at 13 percent, and Mitt Romney at 12. Ron Paul, at 7 percent, was the only other Republican above 2 percent.

On the Democratic side, the tracking shows Hillary Clinton slipping six points in the past week to 35 percent, matching her lowest standing since Rasmussen started daily tracking almost five months ago. Barack Obama was holding in second place at 23 percent, followed by John Edwards at 17 and Bill Richardson at 7 percent.

The poll's margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points.