A leaked Democratic poll has suggested that Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner in the race for the party's presidential nomination, could lose the 2008 election because of her "very polarised image".
The survey by the Democratic pollsters Lake Research indicated that both Mrs Clinton and Barack Obama, second in the Democratic race, trailed Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front runner, in 31 swing congressional districts.
The private memo, leaked to The Washington Post, painted what researchers described as a "sobering picture" for Democrats who believe that President George W Bush's disastrous favourability numbers almost guarantee they will capture the White House next year.
All party preference polls show that Democrats are much more popular than Republicans. But when the names of individual candidates are used, the gap narrows considerably.
"The images of the two early [Democratic] favourites are part of the problem," the memo said.
The leaked poll found that Mr Giuliani, a centrist Republican with liberal stances on issues such as abortion and gay rights, leads Mrs Clinton by 49 per cent to 39 per cent in the swing districts.
The former New York mayor enjoyed a much slimmer lead of just one per cent over Mr Obama in the poll, conducted in August. It has long been known that Mrs Clinton has "high negatives" among voters but the assessment of Mr Obama that his "image is soft, and one-fifth of voters do not gave a firm impression of him" was a surprise.
The poll found that Mrs Clinton, in particular, could damage the chances of congressional Democratic candidates on the ballot. The sensitivity of the issue was underlined by the reluctance of Democrats to discuss the survey.
"We're not commenting on this poll," said Daniel Gotoff, co-author of the memo accompanying the Lake Research poll. "It was leaked and obviously not by us."
But Andy Arnold, a Democratic county chairman in Greenville, South Carolina - a key primary state - said: "I'd be a little bit dishonest if I didn't admit that in some parts of the country, and probably my own, having Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket will have some impact further down.
"People have that concern and are voicing it. The thing with Hillary is that most people have their minds made up. There's a fundamentalist crowd who have an inordinate obsession with things sexual and what happened [during Bill Clinton's administration] played into that."
He added, however, that "whoever we nominate, the right-wing attack machine will make them into the devil by November 2008".
Frank Luntz, a leading Republican pollster, said: "This poll reveals what grassroots Democrats have been concerned about. Hillary is their choice ideologically but not necessarily politically and they're afraid she could lose.
"Democrats want to win more than anything else and they will compromise on policy to achieve electability." Mrs Clinton, he said, prompted a series of perceptions that could damage her.
"She never admits she's wrong. There's a lack of candour and a harshness to her. She doesn't have any of the typical challenges of a female candidate but that is in itself a challenge.
"She doesn't show heart. People see her as strong and a fighter, someone who is qualified and can get things done but she's missing that personal element, that emotional connection.
"Rudy does better among independents than Hillary does and in the end the candidate that gets the majority of independents wins the election."
