Company News · February 7, 2008

What Would Rudy Do?

By Edison Research

We’ll never know, of course, how well Rudy Giuliani might have performed on Super Tuesday had he campaigned aggressively from Iowa onwards, but we do have some sense of the residual support Giuliani had on Super Tuesday, and even more interestingly, where some of those supporters may have gone. In a cross-survey analysis of the 15 Republican races we covered on Super Tuesday, Giuliani received 2% of the vote. We asked two questions across all the primaries we covered on Super Tuesday that specifically named the former New York City Mayor: which candidate is best qualified to be Commander-in-Chief, and which candidate is best qualified to manage the economy. Though 2% cross-survey voted for Giuliani, 7% named him for the former qualification, and 6% for the latter. Amongst the voters who named Giuliani for these two questions, the actual vote distribution is quite interesting:

Actual Vote of Respondents Selecting Giuliani as “Best Choice to Manage Economy (6% Of Sample)”


Response Percentage
Giuliani 18%
Huckabee 15%
McCain 46%
Romney 20%

Actual Vote of Respondents Selecting Giuliani as “Best Choice for Commander-in-Chief (7% Of Sample)”


Response Percentage
Giuliani 19%
Huckabee 11%
McCain 32%
Romney 36%

Overall, Romney was judged to be the best choice to manage the economy (39% cross-sample, compared to 32% for McCain), but those who thought Giuliani would best manage the economy broke much more for McCain, perhaps as a result of his endorsement of McCain’s candidacy. Yet, on the “Commander-in-Chief” question, of those who thought Giuliani would make the best CinC, slightly more actually tended to vote for Romney than McCain. What makes this more notable is the fact that the 39% of Giuliani voters who disapprove of the U.S. war in Iraq much more closely resembles the profile of McCain voters (37% disapproval of the Iraq war) than the profile of Romney voters (only 22% disapproval).

Incidentally (and not necessarily related), while McCain had the highest percentage of Veterans amongst his voters (23% of those who voted for McCain cross-survey have served in the military). Giuliani had the lowest Veteran composition–only 14% of his voters indicated they had served.

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