Morning polls: Clinton leads in Kentucky, Giuliani ties her Connecticut!

• Stunner in Kentucky

Granted, Kentucky is about to elect a Democratic governor in three weeks, but that does not mean it has become a blue state. But the latest Survey USA poll from Kentucky finds Clinton leading against Giuliani!

• Clinton has the edge against Giuliani 47% to 45%. Small lead, but it is Kentucky.
  
• Thompson and McCain both lead against Clinton, respectively 47-45 and 49-45.
  
• Clinton has big leads against the other Republicans, even breaking 50% a few times. 50-41 against Romney, 49-39 against Huckabee, and 51-35 against Ron Paul.
  

A month ago, SUSA's poll had Clinton within single digits of her Republican rivals, and that was already considered a great achievement. That poll also tested Obama and Edwards, and found the latter running much better than the other two. SUSA didn't poll Edwards this time -- so I wonder how he would have done!

• Quinnipiac polls the tri-state area

Quinnipiac just came out with primary and general election polls from Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. It only tested Clinton-Giuliani for the general election. Past polls had suggested that Giuliani would put CT and NJ in play, but would have difficulty doing so in NY. This poll confirms that entirely:

• Clinton leads Giuliani 50% to 36% in New York.
• But Giuliani ties Clinton at 46% in New Jersey.
• In Connecticut, Clinton has an insignificant 46-44 lead.

This also suggests that Giuliani would probably have come away with healthy leads if he had been matched against Obama and Edwards, and that Clinton is benefiting from home-area advantage in keeping tabs on Giuliani. CT is not a must-win for Democrats considering how small it is, but no Democrat will be elected in 2008 to the White House without New York, and probably not without New Jersey. But could the Kentucky and Quinnipiac polls combined mean that we should not think of the 2008 map in terms of the 2000 and 2004 maps (which barely changed)?

The primary numbers are not useful enough to list. You can check them out here. Clinton and Giuliani both benefit from home-area boost in all three states. The closest Obama gets is 27 points in New Jersey. Giuliani's leads are surprisingly even bigger. He posts between 42% and 48% and all the other candidates are in the low double-digits. Quinnipiac notes that the GOP primaries are winner-take-all delegates, so that Giuliani is likely to pick-up all delegates from these three states which would be 15% of the total number he needs to win the nomination.

• CNN polls national numbers

Meanwhile, CNN came out with a national poll yesterday. Once again, Clinton is shown to break 50% in the primary. What was still a shocking feat two weeks ago has now become routine. She leads 51% to Obama's 21%, with Edwards at 15%. On the Republican side, Thompson has fallen from 27% to 19%, in line with other polls. Rudy now leads with 27%. McCain surprisingly comes in third at 17%, followed by Romney at 13%. CNN also came out with only one general election match-up, with Hillary Clinton leading Rudy Giuliani 49% to 47%. Not a big lead at all, but Democrats are coming out consistently ahead -- not surprising, given that a generic Democrat outpolls a generic Republican by 12% in CNN's poll.