Morning polls: Republicans, especially McCain, run better than usual

Two new polls out this morning have Democrats running behind their usual level, and both polls confirm that John McCain now appears to be the most electable Republican candidate.

• New Mexico swings both ways

SUSA's daily poll today comes to us from New Mexico. And Hillary Clinton's numbers are not as great than in other recent SUSA polls (for example yesterday in Iowa):

• Hillary trails both by John McCain 50% to 43% and by Rudy Giuliani 48% to 47%.
• She leads the other Republicans more comfortably: 51% to 43% against Thompson, 49% to 42% against Romney, 49% to 38% against Huckabee, 51% to 35% against Ron Paul.
• SUSA did not try Obama and Edwards, but did poll Gore-Giuliani, finding the Democrat ahead by 4% (49-45).

This suggests both that Hillary is weak in New Mexico (since she runs worst than Gore) and that Republicans are stronger than expected in this state. Last month's SUSA poll from NM had Clinton up with comfortable leads against all Republicans, including an 8 point lead against Giuliani. New Mexico is certainly not a must-win state (it only has 5 electoral votes) but Democrats really want to conquer the West, and NM is the easiest state for them in that region.

Also for the record: I do not find it particularly strange that SUSA only polls Hillary. In the last round of polling in September, SUSA did not poll Huckabee, McCain. In October, they are not polling Edwards, Obama. Whether people like that or not, Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination and until Obama and Edwards reverse that we cannot expect pollsters to systematically include them. Yes, SUSA did try out a Gore-Giuliani match-up, but that is only one out of eight questions in the context of Gore's Nobel Peace Prize.

• Rasmussen tests Obama

Rasmussen came out with national match-ups between Barack Obama on the one side and McCain and Romney on the other. He finds Obama leading 48% to 39%, but now trailing John McCain 45% to 44%.

This might seem like an inconsequential shift, but consider that the Obama-McCain matchup is now the only one of the twelve major contests polled by Rasmussen that the Democrat loses. Edwards and Clinton lead all four major candidates in the latest Rasmussen trials, and Obama leads against the three others. This main reason for this seems to be McCain's remarkable resilience. For someone who had collapsed in all aspects back in July, this is a stunning turn-around.

McCain's strength was also noticeable in most of SUSA's state polls this past week. Democrats should apparently feel happy that McCain is so far down in the GOP nomination race.