Iowa Poll: Walker maintains popularity with 7-point lead

Scott Walker's popularity streak in Iowa is real: He's seven percentage points ahead of his nearest competition in the presidential horse race here, chased by a tight pack of four in a clear top tier: Ben Carson, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee.

Marco Rubio lags in a single-digit scrum, but a deeper look into the numbers shows that if Walker is the hare in Iowa, Rubio may be the tortoise, potentially positioned to pull ahead if he campaigns hard, a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll finds.

Walker, a Wisconsin governor known for imposing restrictions on labor unions, hasn't officially announced he's running for the White House in 2016, but he's the first choice for 17 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers in Iowa, making him the one to beat in an oversized field of 16 Republicans tested.

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"He's fearless," said poll respondent Suzanne Sawyer, a 53-year-old Fort Dodge small-business owner who considers herself very conservative. "He will do what's right for the people that he was elected by. He has proven that in Wisconsin — he went to bat on collective bargaining to get things back in line financially. He's out to do what's best for the state, not what's best for him politically."

Two-thirds of likely Republican caucusgoers view Walker favorably, the highest in the poll, including nearly a third of respondents who view him very favorably.

Walker is now more solidly the front-runner than in a January Iowa Poll, when he had 15 percent and was a lone percentage point ahead of Rand Paul, a Kentucky U.S. senator who agitates against government snooping and warmongering. Paul remains in second place, tied at 10 percent with Ben Carson, a retired brain surgeon who leads with women who plan to attend the GOP caucuses.

Paul bests the field in attracting moderate Republicans, independents who intend to attend the Republican caucuses (21 percent, all but double any other contender), and likely GOP caucusgoers who are under 45. Paul, who has said the GOP "can have people on both sides" of the same-sex marriage issue, has inherited many of the liberty movement conservatives who supported his father, then-Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, in his Iowa caucus races in 2008 and 2012.

But Rand Paul has seen his favorability rating in the poll drop by 9 percentage points since January, more than for any other GOP contender.

"Paul is slightly worse off, which tells me that his efforts to woo his father's supporters have hurt him with typical GOP voters," said Katie Packer, a Washington, D.C.-based GOP strategist who worked for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.

She said of Ben Carson: "People should not underestimate him. He is not going to be the nominee, but he will have influence on who is. Someone will have to go after him soon."

Next in the horse race are Bush, a former governor of Florida, and Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses. They're tied with 9 percent, the new poll shows.

In the last four months, Bush and Carson have each gained 1 percentage point. Paul lost four points, and Huckabee lost one.

Data show Rubio has easier path than Bush

The numbers drop off after the top five contenders, leaving a lagging pack with eight months to go before Iowa fires the starting gun on presidential voting.

Tied in sixth place with 6 percent are Rubio, a Florida U.S. senator who has set foot in Iowa only twice this year, and former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, a religious conservative who won the 2012 caucuses.

Although Rubio doesn't show up in the upper tier, he tops the list of contenders whom likely caucusgoers say is their second choice. Beyond that, 49 percent say they're willing to consider him. Rubio, who would become the nation's first Latino president if he wins the White House, also ranks third highest in favorability — 60 percent view him positively, and just 17 percent unfavorably.

"It really does suggest he's poised to break," pollster J. Ann Selzer said.

The underlying numbers show Bush, a relative of two previous U.S. presidents, has a tougher path in Iowa than Rubio. Bush is viewed unfavorably by more likely caucusgoers (45 percent) than anyone else except for Donald Trump, a Manhattan businessman turned reality TV personality (63 percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (58 percent), who is known for his occasionally bellicose East Coast behavior.

And asked if they could ever support Bush for president, a third said no, never.

"I was looking real hard at Jeb Bush," said poll respondent Judy Heath, a 63-year-old hair stylist and artist from Bettendorf, "and then he opened his mouth and started talking. Time magazine had a great article on him and I thought, 'Maybe,' but then, 'No, no, no, not this again.' "

But Bush, who has logged just two Iowa visits this year and has yet to formally launch his presidential campaign, is considered the first or second choice for president by 16 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers, which ranks him in fourth place in the combined tally. By that measure, Walker stays firmly in first, (27 percent), Rubio is next (18 percent) and Huckabee is third (17 percent).

Bush ranks first with no demographic group, but he comes in second after Walker with GOP likely caucusgoers in four categories: those who are age 65 and over, college graduates, Catholics and those who describe themselves as "conservative," as opposed to "very conservative."

"Jeb Bush and (campaign-manager-to-be) David Kochel should be pleased," said Iowa politics expert Kedron Bardwell, a professor at Simpson College.

Nine contenders come in at 5 percent or less

Five percent of likely caucusgoers say Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is their current first choice for president. That ranks him in eighth place in the overall horse race. Cruz, the first in the field to announce his candidacy, casts himself as a religious conservative and uncompromising fighter for the Constitution.

"I'm surprised that Cruz has not capitalized more on his announcement," Packer said. "I'm beginning to think that opinions are pretty solid and aren't likely to shift — either you like him or you don't."

Christie and Trump are tied for ninth place. In 11th place is former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, with 3 percent, followed by former tech company CEO Carly Fiorina and Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 2 percent.

Rounding out the bottom are South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who are tied for 14th place with 1 percent each, while former New York Gov. George Pataki is at less than 1 percent.

The Iowa Poll of 402 likely Republican caucusgoers was conducted May 25-29 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

— Register staff writer Jason Noble contributed to this report.

Few qualms about senators

Although it was a running GOP theme in the 2008 election that Barack Obama shouldn't be elected president because he was a first-term U.S. senator with no executive experience, the same resume isn't a problem for Republicans in the 2016 race.

There are three first-term senators (Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida) in the GOP nomination race. More than 70 percent of Iowa's likely GOP caucusgoers say it makes no difference in their support of any of them, the new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll shows.

— Jennifer Jacobs

Fiorina gains in favorability

Even though Carly Fiorina is doing very poorly in the presidential horse race, esteem for the former tech company CEO has surged among GOP likely caucusgoers in the last four months.

Just 15 percent viewed her favorably in the last Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll, in January. That has jumped to 41 percent in the May 25-29 poll.

None of the other 15 contenders tested saw their favorability rating climb as much since January. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and retired doctor Ben Carson saw the next biggest increases, up 6 points each.

Another finding: Pieces of Fiorina's resume that her rivals use to criticize her don't matter much to Republican caucusgoers. Most say it's not important that she was fired by Hewlett-Packard (70 percent), that she has never held elected office (59 percent), or that she laid off 30,000 employees as CEO (52 percent).

Seventy-one percent say it's not important that she's the only woman in the GOP field. But 72 percent say it's important that she has aggressively taken on Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.

"It's interesting that Carly is getting a lot of credit for aggressively going after Hillary, but not much credit for being a woman," said GOP consultant Katie Packer. "This tells me that the other candidates need to not be afraid and tentative about going after Hillary. They can't be a woman, but they can take on Hillary."

— Jennifer Jacobs

About the Iowa Poll

The Iowa Poll, conducted May 25-29 for The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 402 registered Iowa voters who say they definitely or probably will attend the 2016 Republican caucuses and 437 registered voters who say they definitely or probably will attend the 2016 Democratic caucuses.

Interviewers contacted 4,161 randomly selected active voters from the Iowa secretary of state's voter registration list by telephone. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect all active voters in the voter registration list.

Questions based on the subsample of 437 likely Democratic caucus attendees have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points, and questions based on the subsample of 402 likely Republican caucus attendees have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the percentages shown here by more than plus or minus 4.7 or 4.9 percentage points, respectively. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error.

Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics is prohibited.