McCain Rejection Rate Spikes; Clinton, Giuliani Still Lead

ByABC News
April 18, 2007, 12:41 PM

April 18, 2007 — -- Voter rejection of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the candidate who's most staunchly backed the Iraq War, has spiked in the last year, to the point where nearly half of Americans -- including a quarter of Republicans -- say they definitely would not support him for president.

That marks a sharp change. In an ABC News/Washington Post poll in May 2006, 28 percent said they wouldn't consider supporting McCain if he were to win his party's nomination. Today that's risen to 47 percent.

It's worse still for former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney; a majority of Americans, 54 percent, say they definitely wouldn't vote for him, including a third of Republicans -- a particularly broad level of rejection within his own party.

Indeed McCain and Romney's negatives on this measure match or exceed those of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., whose polarized political profile has been well documented. Forty-five percent of adults say they definitely wouldn't vote for her, about the same as last May.

Clinton sustains less rejection within her own party than either McCain or Romney in theirs -- 15 percent of Democrats say they wouldn't support her. And, conversely, she's also got the highest "definite" support. Twenty-seven percent say she's got their vote nailed down, more than say so about any of her leading rivals, Democratic or Republican.

Rounding out the top contenders, 40 percent say they definitely wouldn't vote for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and 35 or 36 percent flatly reject former Sen. John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

In the plus column, 17 to 20 percent say they'd definitely back Obama, Edwards or Giuliani; fewer are definitely for McCain (12 percent) or Romney (7 percent).

Since much of this is based in partisanship, these views may be at least as instructive among independents alone, on the theory that party adherents are likely ultimately to line up behind their party's nominee.

That result shifts the picture. Fifty-one percent of independents say they definitely would not support Clinton for president, more than say so about any other candidate save Romney (53 percent).