Sen. Hillary Clinton's lead over Sen. Barack Obama, her chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, is growing among African-American voters who are registered Democrats, and particularly among black women, a poll said Wednesday.

Sen. Hillary Clinton is the top choice of African-American Democrats, a new poll suggests.

Among black registered Democrats overall, Clinton had a 57 percent to 33 percent lead over Obama.

That's up from 53 percent for Clinton and 36 percent for Obama in a poll carried out in April.

The question had a sampling error of plus-or-minus 6.5 percentage points.

The former first lady's strongest support among blacks came from black women, 68 percent of whom identified her as their likely choice, versus 25 percent who cited Obama, the senator from Illinois who is African-American.

Black men who are registered Democrats were nearly evenly split, with 42 percent favoring Clinton and 46 percent favoring Obama. The sampling error of that question was plus-or-minus 8 percentage points.

Black registered Democrats also appeared more sure of themselves than did whites, with two-thirds (67 percent) of blacks saying they would definitely support whichever candidate they had said they favored, versus one-third (33 percent) who said they might change their minds.

The 26-point difference between black women and men underscores the fact that the nation's vote is divided not only by race, but also by gender, said CNN political analyst Bill Schneider. "Black women don't just vote their black identity," he said. "They also vote their identity as women."

"The 'sistah' vote is paying off handsomely for Hillary Clinton," said Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile. "It's not only getting her the women's vote. It's also getting her the black vote."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/17/p oll.blacks.democrats/

There is a new Fox news poll out as well , the aim of the poll was to test the effect of a third party run from a christian conservative , so lets hope Guiliani is the nominee and they bolt.

In a head-to-head contest, Clinton has a 4 percentage point edge over Giuliani -- 47 percent to 43 percent. Clinton has maintained a slim advantage over Giuliani for the last few months.

In a hypothetical three-way race, an unnamed Christian Conservative third party candidate receives the support of 14 percent of voters, and Clinton tops Giuliani by 10 points (44 percent to 34 percent).

Giuliani's support among Republicans drops from 79 percent in the two-way race to 60 percent when the third party Christian Conservative is included.

By a 56 percent to 35 percent margin, self-identified Born Again Christians back Giuliani over Clinton. When given the option, about a quarter of this group says they would vote for a Christian Conservative candidate -- reducing Giuliani's support by 20 points: Giuliani 36 percent, Clinton 30 percent and the Christian Conservative 26 percent.

Among conservatives, Giuliani's support falls from 57 percent in the head-to-head race against Clinton to 42 percent when a third-party conservative is included.

In other two-way matchups, the poll finds that Clinton tops McCain by 3 points, and bests both Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney by 12 points.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,3027 76,00.html  

The first Rasmussen Reports poll of the Iowa Democratic Caucus for 2008 finds Senator Hillary Clinton on top with support from 33% of Likely Caucus Participants. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards is supported by 22% and Illinois Senator Barack Obama attracts 21%. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is at 7% in the poll followed by Delaware Senator Joe Biden at 4% (see crosstabs).

Clinton has a substantial lead among women, attracting 39% of the female vote. She has a much smaller advantage among men, leading Edwards just 28% to 24%.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c ontent/politics/democratic_iowa_caucus