Two Views On Who Fred Thompson Hurts

The truth is, no one really knows from whom Fred Thompson will steal votes once he enters the presidential race. And we're especially clueless about the second-degree effects of his candidacy.

Thompson's polling firm, McLaughlin and Associates, finds that Thompson wins the support of 18 percent of the Republican primary electorate today, stealing almost all of his votes from Rudy Giuliani.

Among moderate Republicans, Thompson’s support has increased by 14 points (4% to 18%), while Giuliani’s support has decreased significantly (37% to 29%). McCain (19% to 16%) and Romney (8% to 3%) have also lost support among moderate Republicans. Giuliani shows a slight loss among conservative Republicans (25% to 22%), while Thompson (16% to 18%), McCain (14% to 16%) and Romney (8% to 10%) show slight gains.

Note: "For the subsample of 350 Republicans, the accuracy is +5.2% at a 95% confidence interval."

A new Cook Political Report/RT Strategies survey comes to much the same conclusion: Giuliani quickly loses about 5 percent of his support overall and 6 percent of his support among men. Thompson picks up votes in the South and the West, stealing support, weirdly, from Tommy Thompson.

They surveyed 662 Republicans and Republican leaners -- that's a margin of error of +/- 3.8%.

Political chatter -- conventional wisdom -- suggests that most folks believe that Mitt Romney will wind up hurting the most in the end because Thompson will steal votes from him that he otherwise might have gotten. But that's just a guess based on one variable: both are appealing to conservatives. But Thompson seems to be attracting moderates as well.