Frontrunners Slip Further

For weeks we've been watching Hillary's and Rudy's respective leads shrink in Iowa... and now it appears that trend is going national. A Gallup/USA Today poll finds both candidates taking about a ten percent hit in less than a month:

Clinton's standing among Democrats dropped by 11 percentage points from early November, and Giuliani's standing among Republicans fell by 9 points, though both continue to lead their fields.

Rasmussen, which does daily tracking, sees a similar effect. In fact, today's Rasmussen numbers show Giuliani and man-of-the-moment Mike Huckabee in a dead heat! How much do you think that has to do with the still-brewing travel scandal?

On the Dem side, while Clinton's lead over Barack Obama has been cut almost in half since early November, it's mostly because her numbers are dropping. Obama's stats remain pretty much the same, despite his allegedly more aggressive tone out on the stump.

More than anything, these two polls are another reminder that it's a loooong way to November '08.