Rudy Giuliani, despite putting all his eggs in his Florida basket, has dropped to third place in two recent polls (one conducted before Fred Thompson’s withdrawal, one after) even after considering the former poll’s whopping 5.1-point 95% confidence margin, suggesting that Rudy’s strategy of saturating the state with ads before any elections elsewhere had taken place has seriously backfired as events on the ground have rapidly reframed the race as a Romney-McCain contest.
Further complicating things for Giuliani is that the January 29th ballot will also include Amendment 1, a state constitutional amendment that would increase the property tax homestead exemption for most Floridians, which is likely to help drive up turnout in the primary among Florida anti-tax voters who are likely to be social conservatives as well. All-in-all, it looks very likely that Rudy will be joining Duncan, Tom, and Fred in the loser’s lounge before the month is out.
UPDATE (James Joyner): Here are the five most recent polls via RealClearPolitics:
Giuliani’s in the mix, certainly, but it’s noteworthy that he’s no better than 2nd in any of them. More telling, the trend lines aren’t exactly going his way:
