Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) continues to lead to pack of hopefuls for the GOP nomination. Support for Giuliani among those likely to vote in a Republican Presidential primary inched up to 34% this week following two straight weeks at the 33% level.

Arizona Senator John McCain (R) remains in second place, fifteen points behind the current frontrunner. With support from 19% of Likely Voters, McCain has picked up two points from last week.

Despite trailing Giuliani by a wide margin, some pundits still consider McCain to be the frontrunner in the race. They reason that Giuliani’s position on key cultural issues will ultimately cost him support among the political conservatives who make up the GOP base.

However, one of the most visible conservatives in the Republican Party is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Recently, Gingrich had nice things to say about Giuliani. This weekend, at a gathering of conservative leaders, the former Speaker indicated he is not a McCain fan. Gingrich’s influence may be larger than simply a well-respected figure in the conservative hierarchy as he currently places third in polling for the GOP nomination. This week, he attracts support from 12% of the GOP faithful. Gingrich is not officially running at the moment and has said he will not make a decision until at least September.

Trailing Gingrich is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) at 9%. Gingrich also made a point of saying positive things about Romney earlier in the process.

Giuliani currently leads all Democrats in General Election match-ups. This includes Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards, Governor Bill Richardson, and Senator Joe Biden.

McCain is essentially even with Clinton, Obama, and Edwards while leading Richardson and Biden.

Other GOP hopefuls trail Democrats in General Election polling.

Rasmussen Reports releases updated polling data on the Republican nominating contest every Tuesday. Results for the Democrats are updated on Mondays. The current survey is based upon national telephone interviews with 611 Likely Republican Primary Voters conducted February 26-March 1, 2007.

See a summary of all match-ups along with favorability ratings and perceptions of the candidates’ ideology. A summary is also provided for Democratic contenders.