New Hampshire Poll: Giuliani Support Deflates, McCain And Clinton Balloon

A new poll brings cheery New Year’s news to Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton and Republican Senator John McCain — and gives yet another indication that New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s candidacy is seemingly deflating.

With exactly a week to go until New Hampshire, McCain has pulled ahead of Romney and Clinton has opened back up a double-digit lead in New Hampshire, according to a 7News/Suffolk University poll.

McCain gained 12 points since a month ago in the same survey to vault ahead of Romney 31%-25%. Romney had led in the December Suffolk poll 31%-19% over McCain. Giuliani is third.

That’s a huge lead which indicates voters who are shopping are having second thoughts about Romney — which would not be surprising in New Hampshire, since several newspapers there have virtually denounced him and called him a hypocrite. These papers clearly consider Romney the “change” candidate — but in this case because he has changed so many of the positions he (seemingly) held as Massachusetts governor.

And the news for Clinton is excellent too:

A month ago, Clinton led Obama by 7 points (33%-26%), but now the poll shows her with a whopping 36%-22% lead. Apparently, Clinton has peeled away some of those undecideds from a month ago as that number dropped from 19% to just 12% this month. Edwards comes in third with 14%. (He had 15% in December.)

The Republican numbers: McCain 31%, Romney 25%, Giuliani 14%, Huckabee 9%.

The Democratic numbers: Clinton 36%, Obama 22%, Edwards 14%.

The poll was conducted from Dec. 27 to Dec. 31 and has a margin of error for each party subsample of 300 respondents of +/- 5.65%.

Several other polls have shown a closing between McCain and Romney as well as Clinton and Obama in the Granite State.

On the other hand, when the Iowa voters are counted, this poll could be outdated. Even if Iowa won’t sway the election in New Hampshire, whoever wins in Iowa will be basking in media glow a few days before the New Hampshire primary. There will be a host of stories about the winners and losers in Iowa and why the pundits and talking heads think they lost or won.

The bottom line is that it’s a highly-fluid election year.

But from all signs, John McCain is on the rise.