Mitt Romney topped the GOP field in the fund-raising race for the first quarter and moved past former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the race for the Republican nomination. However, while ahead in cash, the former Governor of Massachusetts remains fourth in the polls. The top three positions are unchanged this week with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani at 27%, Arizona Senator John McCain at 16%, and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson at 14%. Those figures are virtually unchanged from a week ago.

Romney is back in double digits at 12% and that’s his best poll performance of the season. Gingrich falls back to 8%, his weakest performance in the polls this year.

While Giuliani is still on top, his support is down dramatically from two weeks ago. Not only that, his favorables have tumbled from the stratosphere to 58% (still the highest of any Presidential candidate, but down from 71% in December). Also, Giuliani has lost his leads in general election match-ups with the top three Democrats in the field. America’s Mayor is essentially tied with New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama Giuliani has fallen behind former North Carolina Senator John Edwards.

McCain, like Giuliani, is effectively tied with Clinton and Obama but trails Edwards.

Thompson is tied with Clinton but trails both Obama and Edwards.

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 512 Likely Republican Primary Voters conducted April 2-5, 2007. The margin of sampling error is +/- 5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

In recent weeks, the number of unaffiliated voters expressing a preference for voting in a GOP Primary has declined. Many states, including New Hampshire, provide unaffiliated voters with the opportunity to vote in either primary. Separate survey data shows that the number of Americans identifying themselves as Republicans has declined over the past several months.

Rasmussen Reports continuously updates favorability ratings and general election match-ups for all Democratic and Republican candidates. We also maintain ratings for Members of Congress, Other Political Figures, and Journalists.