Pollster.Com has added New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to the top tier of Democratic candidates. Richardson has been gaining in Iowa and New Hampshire and one recent internal poll in Iowa showed Richardson ahead of Sen. Barack Obama among the most likely caucus goers for 2008.

In the changing Iowa race Sen. Hillary Clinton has led in the last 3 of 4 public polls. Former Sen. John Edwards still has a narrow 1.2% lead in the RCP poll averages.

Starting today I'm adding Bill Richardson to the Top Democrats charts for both state primaries and the national nomination polling. The graph above shows his substantial movement in Iowa, and New Hampshire looks quite similar. While Richardson is still in fourth place in both states (5th in NH if you include Gore), his is the only trajectory that is clearly moving up. So it seems fitting to start watching it with each new poll.

Richardson's movement is substantially concentrated in Iowa and New Hampshire, so when I include him elsewhere, you might wonder why I'd call him a "Top Democrat." See Florida below for an example.

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/pres08_add ing_richardson_to_th.php

Grace Gore, a relative of Al Gore, is the new Miss Tennessee. There is no real political news about the story but it is good to see someone in the Gore family become a statewide figure in Tennessee again.

(Photos At BlueSunbelt.Com)
http://bluesunbelt.com/showDiary.do?diar yId=724

 

The Miss Tennessee competition, held this weekend, had a few political connections this year. The winner, Grace Gore, will become Gov. Bredesen's spokesman for the Safe and Drug-Free Tennessee program. She's a distant relation to TN's most famous Gore - Al.

http://www.tnpolitic...

 

 

 

 

 Grace Gore has fond childhood memories of attending the Miss Tennessee Scholarship Pageant with her grandmother during summer visits to Jackson.

"I would just watch in awe," Gore said. At age 7 or 8, she even remembers thinking: "Wow! When am I ever going to be like that?"

Gore got her answer Saturday night when she was crowned the new Miss Tennessee. Gore, a doctoral student of audiology at Vanderbilt University, will later compete in the Miss America preliminary competition and the pageant next year.

http://www.tennessea...

 

 

 

The campaign of Gov. Bill Richardson has sent out an email from their pollster which claims that new polling shows that Richardson has overtaken Sen. Barack Obama in Iowa and has moved up to third place. The email says that Richardson is now at 13% in Iowa. They did not release figures for any of the other candidates.

(Copy Of Email On BlueSunbelt.Com)

http://bluesunbelt.com/showDiary.do?diar yId=722

Sen. Barack Obama has nearly caught up to Sen. Hillary Clinton in at least one poll. 40% of voters now say they will definitely vote against Obama in the general election if he is the Democratic nominee. Obama's negatives have risen as his name recognition has grown. At the same time that negatives have increased for Obama they have also increased substantially for Sen. John McCain and Mayor Rudy Giuliani on the GOP side. Former Sen. John Edwards has the lowest negatives of candidates in either party of those polled so far by Rasmussen.

Would Definitely Vote Against
Sen. Joe Biden    47%
Sen. Hillary Clinton 46%
Sen. John McCain 42%
Sen. Barack Obama 40%
Mayor Rudy Giuliani  37%
Sen. John Edwards 32%

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_conte nt/politics/mccain_falls_behind_clinton_ giuliani_clinton_still_a_toss_up

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_conte nt/politics/clinton_has_highest_level_of _base_support_but_46_would_never_vote_fo r_her

A new Mason Dixon poll of Nevada shows Sen. Hillary Clinton with a 22 point lead. Clinton has 39% while Sen. Barack Obama came in second place with 17% and former Sen. John Edwards was in third place with 12%.

Hillary Clinton     39%
Barack Obama   17%
John Edwards    12%
Bill Richardson     7%
Joe Biden             2%

http://bluesunbelt.com/showDiary.do?diar yId=719

Clinton's strong showing came as no surprise to Nevada political analysts, who said the New York senator is well ahead of her rivals in organization. The results signal problems for Richardson, a Hispanic from the region who is counting on a strong showing in Nevada.

"That's consistent with what we're hearing. She's got a stronger team on the ground," said Nevada Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, a Democrat who recently endorsed Clinton.

The trend lines for the poll are in line with other recent polling of Nevada which show a wide lead by Clinton.

American Research Group     June 15-19, 2007     Hillary Clinton 40%, John Edwards 16%, Barack Obama 16%, Bill Richardson 6%, Joe Biden 2%, Dennis Kucinich 2%, Wesley Clark 1%, Christopher Dodd 1%, Mike Gravel 1%, Undecided 15%

Mason-Dixon     April 30-May 2, 2007     Hillary Clinton 37%, John Edwards 13%, Barack Obama 12%, Al Gore 9%, Bill Richardson 6%, Undecided 19%

Zogby International     April 11-12, 2007     Hillary Clinton 35%, Barack Obama 21%, John Edwards 15%, Bill Richardson 5%, Joe Biden 2%, Mike Gravel <1%, Dennis Kucinich <1%, Christopher Dodd <1%, Not Sure 19%

Gazette-Journal Poll     Mar 9, 2007     Hillary Clinton 32%, Barack Obama 20%, John Edwards 11%, Al Gore 11%, Wesley Clark 2%, Bill Richardson 2%, Joe Biden 1%, Christopher Dodd 1%, Mike Gravel 1%, Dennis Kucinich 1%

American Research Group     Dec 19-23, 2006     Hillary Clinton 37%, Barack Obama 13%, John Edwards 9%, John Kerry 9%, Wesley Clark 4%, Christopher Dodd 2%, Joe Biden 1%, Mike Gravel 1%, Dennis Kucinich 1%, Bill Richardson 1%, Tom Vilsack 1%

Alan Fram of AP has a good analysis of the failure so far of the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama to attract a broad following of the traditional Democratic base. While Obama started with tremendous media buzz and has been successful in attracting a large number of contributors he has fallen short in attracting what is needed most which are the traditional Democratic voters who vote in the primary and caucus states. Sen. Hillary Clinton leads Obama in the national polls, in all but a few state polls, and in every major demographic group.

http://bluesunbelt.com/showDiary.do?diar yId=716

SurveyUSA has a new 16 state general election poll out today showing how a race between Sen. Hillary Clinton, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg would look. The polling shows Clinton would win some states that the GOP previously captured including Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, and Ohio and could even put some additional states in play including Kentucky where she is only 1 point. She would keep Giuliani below 50% in states such as Alabama and Texas which could even potentially come into play if Giuliani has problems securing the conservative GOP base.

http://bluesunbelt.com/showDiary.do?diar yId=708

State    Giuliani    Clinton    Bloomberg
Alabama    46    39    11
California    40    45    10
Iowa    37    42    11
Kansas    47    36    8
Kentucky    42    41    10
Massachusetts    37    47    9
Minnesota    37    48    7
Missouri    39    44    10
New Mexico    41    45    8
New York    32    49    15
Ohio    41    47    8
Oregon    38    44    11
Texas    48    34    10
Virginia    45    40    9
Washington    41    42    11
Wisconsin    40    44    10

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/poll_surve yusa_16_3way_gen

No previous polling of these matchups from which to derive trend lines.

The London Telegraph is reporting in their Sunday edition that former Sec. of State Collin Powell, who built the case for the Bush invasion of Iraq, may be close to "joining forces" with Sen. Barack Obama. Powell, whose discredited testimony before the United Nations helped sell the war to Congress and the American public, ruled out being on a ticket with Obama for vice president but did not rule a high ranking position in an Obama administration.

http://bluesunbelt.com/showDiary.do?diar yId=704