A new ARG poll out yesterday, showing Hillary Clinton leading the Democratic field by 25 points and Rudy Giuliani up on the GOP side by 8 points shows an interesting gender gap developing in both parties: Women are flocking to certain candidates, and those candidates are winning.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton could not have reached 45% without an even half of the women surveyed backing her bid. Just 39% of men support her candidacy. Barack Obama, in second place with 20%, scores better among women than among men as well, by a 21% to 18% margin. Many more men favor John Edwards (third place, 13%) and Joe Biden (fourth, with 5%) than women.

Among Republicans, Giuliani benefits from a sizeable 11-point gender gap. The front-runner, with 24%, scores 30% with women and just 19% with men. The gender gap reverses in second place, as more men back Fred Thompson (21%) than women (11%), giving him 16%, and Mitt Romney's 15% comes with a four-point male advantage. In fourth place with 14%, John McCain scoops up women voters, who favor him by a 10-point margin over their male counterparts.

The gender gap among Democrats is understandable -- Clinton, as the first woman front-runner in history, benefits from a sizable lead. On the GOP side, could Giuliani's head start among women come from his post-September 11th mystique and concerns about crime and safety? If so, the issue may be a tool Giuliani, as the GOP nominee, could use to cut into what would likely be an even larger gender gap in the general election.