KEY POINTS:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton may now be consolidating her front-runner status with a new poll today showing her taking a double-digit lead in the race for the Democratic nomination.
The USA Today/Gallup poll showed Mrs Clinton with 39 per cent lead over Mr Obama with 26 per cent if the Democratic primary races were decided tomorrow.
That represented a significant advance for the first lady who came up one point behind the Illinois senator in the last such poll taken 1-3 June.
It is not the first survey, however, showing Mrs Clinton apparently reemerging as the leader everyone else must beat. A Los Angeles Times poll last week also gave her an eleven-point edge of Mr Obama.
Significantly, however, the LA Times poll suggested when the Democrats were lined up against the field of Republican candidates, it was Mr Obama who came out ahead of them while she came behind. It was a finding that is bound to have worried Democrat grandees as they see Mrs Clinton pulling ahead in the Democrat field but not gaining on Republican rivals in an open poll.
Both polls meanwhile revealed significant gains for Fred Thompson, the former Senator and television actor, in the spread of Republican candidates. Even though the affable Mr Thompson has yet officially to join the race, he is emerging as a powerful challenge to the current Republican leader, former New York City Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who has seen his numbers gradually erode over recent weeks.
The USA Today survey showed Mr Giuliani with 28 per cent support compared to 19 per cent for Mr Thompson, who has already leapfrogged Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has seen much of the helium escape from his campaign since earlier this year.
- INDEPENDENT
