Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani agreed on Wednesday that President Obama is "ahead in key states," but said this week's new poll numbers can't necessarily predict the election.
"Is Obama ahead in the key states right now? Yes. Is he ahead by enough so that Romney can't overtake him? You'd have to be a fool to say that he is. I mean, there's too much to go: debates, we got a Mideast that — who knows what's going on in the Mideast," said Giuliani on CNN's "Starting Point."
When pressed to confirm whether he thought Obama is up in key states, Giuliani said, "I do. I believe that Obama is ahead."
"If I were the Obama campaign, I'd feel a little better than the Romney campaign. I'd feel like we're ahead, things are working, but boy I'd be nervous as heck that we've got four debates, three presidential debates and we've got a Mideast that who knows what's going to happen next," he said.
The new
Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times poll released Wednesday shows Obama leading Mitt Romney by 53-43 percent among likely voters in Ohio and with a 53-44 edge in Florida. And according to the
RealClearPolitics average of polls from September, Obama has a 3.6-percentage-point advantage over the GOP nominee in the race.
Giuliani, a Romney supporter, said polls don't necessarily give an accurate picture of the electorate and election cycle.
"Poll can be a sample of the 2008 election, instead of a sample of the 2010 election, and I don't know what the 2012 election's going to be. The pollster doesn't. He's guessing at it," Giuliani said.
The former mayor was highly critical of Obama's handling of the turmoil and changes taking hold in the Middle East.
"The simple fact is the Obama approach to the Mideast is not working. Iran now has three times more enriched uranium since the day that President Obama came into office. His whole approach to Iran isn't working. Egypt is now trying put Sharia law into the constitution ... an American ambassador is killed for the first time since Jimmy Carter. We've had thirty, forty demonstrations against America," Giuliani said.
The president on Tuesday spoke before the
United Nations, where he called on the gathered leaders to “seize this moment” and “speak out forcefully against violence and extremism,” adding that “real freedom is hard work.”
“Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense,” he said. “Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs."
