A new poll indicates that if New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg decides to launch an independent bid for President he’ll help the Democrats in Florida:
If New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg runs for President as an independent candidate, it helps Democrats in Florida, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. In a two- way race, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani edges New York Sen. Hillary Clinton 46 – 44 percent. With Bloomberg in the mix, taking 9 percent, Clinton inches past Giuliani 41 – 39 percent, giving the Democrat her best shot so far at Florida’s crucial 27 electoral votes.
In a matchup of second place contenders, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama tops former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson 42 – 39 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. In a three-way race, Obama doubles his lead over Thompson to 38 – 32 percent, with 14 percent for Bloomberg.
“The conventional wisdom may be that Mayor Bloomberg’s generally liberal approach to many issues would mean he would take more votes from Democrats and help the Republicans in a three-way race. At this point, that just isn’t so,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
“Mayor Bloomberg can clearly be a spoiler in Florida, but he would have a long way to go to have a serious chance of winning the state,” said Brown. “Only slightly more people view him favorably than unfavorably and 57 percent don’t know enough about him to venture an opinion.”
However, the poll doesn’t take another factor into consideration. Third party perenniel Ralph Nader has increasingly suggested that he’s going to jump into the race (again), particularly if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination. So 2008 could be a wild one, indeed…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.