Gallup just released their new April poll. There are some interesting things going on inside. First, an omnibus table with all the numbers, margin of error is 5%:
| Candidate | GOP % | Without Newt | GOP Fav | GOP UnFav | Overall Fav | Overall UnFav |
| Rudy Giuliani | 38 | 42 | 77 | 14 | 61 | 27 |
| John McCain | 16 | 18 | 68 | 19 | 57 | 26 |
| Newt Gingrich | 10 | – | 54 | 29 | 29 | 48 |
| Fred Thompson | 10 | 12 | 35 | 7 | 24 | 11 |
| Mitt Romney | 6 | 7 | 37 | 15 | 25 | 21 |
First, the big one. Thompson is tied for 3rd with Newt even with very low name ID. The idea that he is doing well because of his high name ID from his TV life is bogus. It is an excuse being used to explain other people’s poor polling, especially relative to Thompson. Look at this this way. Just under 25% of the people who know who he is support him. Compare to Romney, where less than 15% of the people who know who he is support him, or McCain, just under 20%. (Needless to say, Rudy is a different ballgame)
Second, Romney’s unfavorables are still very bad. Among GOPers, Romney and Rudy Giuliani have about unfavorables, even though Rudy is twice as popular overall. Romney is still getting introduced by someone else (the AP) rather than himself. It doesn’t matter how much TV you are buying if you can’t get a decent story in the papers.
Third, while McCain’s top-level polling is not great, indeed he is struggling, his fundamentals are pretty good. How many Republicans other than Rudy and Bush have a more positive image nationwide than McCain? It is too bad that the polls don’t try to figure out why he is not doing better. The answer that he is not liked by the base is not born out in these numbers. Indeed, according to these numbers, Romney is almost as disliked at John McCain, even though half of GOP voters don’t know anything about Romney. The number of people who dislike him is only going up…
Fourth, Rudy’s numbers are back up from the 31% last month…
