BOSTON -- A telephone poll of likely New Hampshire voters, conducted by Suffolk University students from February 24-28, 2007, revealed top Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are statistically tied for the lead among Democratic voters in the Granite State. Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani had a 10-point lead over John McCain, his nearest rival. The results of the poll were officially announced today.

The poll, a student initiated class project in the government course titled, "Political Survey Research," offers undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to write, design, sample, execute, and analyze poll findings from a topic of their choice.

The poll revealed that Democrat Obama would defeat Republican Mitt Romney in a head-to-head match up and tie McCain and Giuliani, while Clinton would only defeat Romney. Republican front-runner Giuliani defeated Democrats Clinton and John Edwards in a head-to-head match up and tied Obama.

"While Giuliani continues to lead among Republicans, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are neck and neck among Democrats," said Suffolk Government Professor David Paleologos, who oversaw the student initiated class poll project. "However, Clinton’s unfavorability ratings are negatively affecting her competitiveness against the top Republican candidates."

The survey of 500 Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters likely to vote in the 2008 presidential election found that Hillary Clinton’s unfavorability rating of 48% was the highest unfavorability rating of any candidate.

Among those who said they would vote in the Democratic Primary, Clinton led with 28% support with Obama close behind at 26%. John Edwards was third with 17% support, while 17% of voters were undecided. No other Democratic candidate had more than 3% support.

Among those who said they would vote in the Republican Primary, Giuliani led the ballot with 37% support, followed by McCain (27%), Mitt Romney (17%). A total of 12% of voters were undecided. No other Republican candidate had more than 2% support.

All respondents were then presented with several potential final election match ups between each party’s top three candidates and asked toward whom they would lean at this time. The results are tabulated below with the winners in bold

The survey also revealed that 36% of New Hampshire voters consider the Iraq war was their most important political issue, with healthcare (25%) and the economy/jobs (23%) statistically tied for second.

In addition, fifty-six percent of all respondents said they prefer gradually withdrawing American troops from Iraq over a defined period the best course of action for the war, with 18% calling for deployment of additional troops and 16% calling for an immediate withdrawal of all troops. Forty-one percent of all respondents said the candidate’s policy on the Iraq war would be the most important factor when choosing whom to vote for, with 29% citing their views on the economy were most important and 10% saying the candidate’s values or religion were most important. The survey’s margin of error was +/- 4.38% at a 95% confidence level.

The entire poll can be viewed and downloaded at www.suffolk.edu. The Suffolk University government class that initiated this poll is scheduled to release 224 pages of cross-tabulation data on Wednesday, March 7th.