McCain Fares Best Against Dems from CNN

Article Excerpt

WASHINGTON (CNN) - While Republican White House hopeful Mike Huckabee is surging in new surveys evaluating the GOP presidential horserace, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Tuesday suggests he might lose to all three leading Democratic candidates by double digits in a general election match up.

In head-to-head face-offs - the first to include Huckabee - the former Arkansas governor loses to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton by 10 percentage points (54 percent to 44 percent), to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama by 15 percent points (55 percent to 40 percent) and to former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards by 25 percentage points (60 percent to 35 percent).

The poll comes on the heels of a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday showing that Huckabee has doubled his support nationally among likely Republican voters in the last month and now is in a statistical dead heat with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

But according to CNN Polling Director Keating Holland, Huckabee's double-digit deficits with the leading Democrats likely suggests that the Arkansas Republican still lacks widespread name recognition nationally.

"Americans tend not to support candidates they're not familiar with, and it's possible Huckabee's numbers are low in these hypothetical match-ups because he is still not very well-known nationally," Holland said.

The poll also suggests Arizona Sen. John McCain would do best against the leading Democrats. He beats Clinton by 2 percentage points (50 percent to 48 percent), ties Obama (48 percent to 48 percent), and loses to Edwards by a smaller margin (8 percentage points) than the other Republican candidates do.

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