McCain Closing On Guiliani?

CNN released a new poll today, in which it compared the existing or rumored Republican candidates. Here are the results; click to enlarge:

With all the candidates in the race, Giuliani has only a three point lead over McCain. His lead widens a bit if Gingrich and Fred Thompson are not both included. I haven’t had time to study the internals, assuming they’re available, but note what it says at the bottom of the graphic: “Interviews with 1,218 adult Americans, including 312 blacks and 768 whites….” If the poll’s respondents really were 26% black, that’s a ridiculous over-sample. Further, there were only 368 Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, so the margin of error on the Republican side is 5%.
So it’s hard to have a lot of confidence in the results; still, the CNN survey, like other data we’ve seen lately, suggests that those who counted McCain out of the race were premature.
On the Democratic side, Obama has closed to within eight points of Hillary Clinton.
To comment on this post, go here.