Evening polls: Quinnipiac polls the swing states, Clinton and Giuliani slide in New Hampshire

I have to find a way to report all the important polls without making every single entry I write poll-related. This was not a problem until this week, but now that we are getting a deluge of daily surveys I will have to find a way to do that. Bear with me in the meantime!

• Quinnipiac polls the swing states

Quinnipiac came out with its wave of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania primary and general election polls. I will not comment on the primary polls here given that they are not particularly important in the primary process (except for Florida, where Giuliani gets 30% and is followed by Romney at... 12% and where Clinton crushes Obama 53% to 17%). So let's go straight to the general election:

• In Florida, Hillary Clinton takes a comfortable lead against Rudy Giuliani, 48% to 41%. But Giuliani beats both Obama 45% to 37% and Edwards 43% to 39%.
  
• Clinton wins all other match-ups comfortably as well: 47-40 to McCain, 52-36 to Thompson, 50-36 to Romney, and 50-35 to Huckabee.
  
• A very interesting finding also is that Clinton has the highest favorable rating by far, at 52%. Her unfovarables are lower than the CW dictates, at 41%.
  

• In Ohio, Hillary is on top of Rudy 45% to 41%. The other Democrats beat her as well: Edwards runs better than Clinton, winning 45% to 38%. Obama wins 42% to 38%.
• Clinton crushes Thompson (47-38), Romney (47-37) and Huckabee (45-38), though she barely comes on top of McCain 44% to 42%.
  

• In Pennsylvania, Clinton and Giuliani are tied at 44%. Clinton also ties McCain at 43%, while Obama and Giuliani tie at 41%.
• Giuliani manages to beat Edwards 44% to 40%, but Clinton wins the three other match-ups: 49-37 to Thompson, 49-37 to Romney, and 48-37 to Huckabee.

Everyone obviously knows that these three states are The Big Three swing states of presidential elections in the past few cycles. If Democrats win two out of three, they are pretty much sure of winning the presidency. If they only win one, the road becomes tougher though not impossible if they pick up Iowa, New Mexico and a state like Missouri or Colorado.

It is interesting that Democrats look the weakest in the only state Kerry won in 2004 (Pennsylvania). The Florida poll must be very comforting -- it is likely that Republicans would not be able to recover the loss of these 27 electoral votes. But all in all, this wave confirms that 2008 will remain a close election; it starts leaning Democratic, but the GOP is hardly out of it.

One last note: It looks impossible to do an electability argument out of these polls other than say that Clinton has no problem being competitive in the general election (not that there isn't a ton of evidence for that already). She runs much better than Edwards and Obama in Florida, though that does not happen in OH.

• Clinton and Giuliani's slide in New Hampshire

Two polls out of New Hampshire today have Clinton with a slim lead. One of them has her margin down to 6% -- the smallest we have seen since July:

• The Washington-Post poll has Clinton at 35%, with Obama at 29%. Edwards is at 17% and Richardson at 10%.
• The internal actually bring some good news for Clinton, who is widely seen as the most electable and the most prepared -- though Obama is viewed as the most honest by a small plurality. The most interesting stat might be that 53% of her supporters say they will "definitely" vote for her and 60% say they are "enthusiastic." The Post does not provide the exact numbers for Obama and Edwards yet, but they say that they have "much fewer" definite and enthusiastic backers. This could be a big help for Clinton if she collapses in Iowa.

• The second poll is from Marist and has better news for Clinton who slightly expands her lead. She now is ahead 37% to 23%, with Edwards lurking behind at 18%.
• Among Republicans, Romney gets 29% followed by McCain and Giuliani at 17%. Huckabee gets to 11%.
  

Now, this Marist poll is especially interesting since its last version (out on November 11th) was the first poll to show a dramatic Clinton collapse -- and it had started the storyline of Clinton's slide post-Philadelphia debate. Since then, things have solidified -- Clinton led 36% to 25%. Among Republicans, however, Giuliani was ahead of McCain 22% to 13% -- and this surge is also picked-up by the WaPo poll out yesterday which has McCain finally ahead of Giuliani.

Naturally, New Hampshire will be dramatically changed post-Iowa, and the five days before January 8th will see a very different picture. But the question Clinton will have to answer until then is: Can she use New Hampshire as a firewall, would her lead here survive if she lost Iowa? On the one hand, her margin is small at this point and would likely disappear -- on the other, she probably would not suffer a Dean-like collapse, since her support is much stronger. We shall see in three weeks!