Latest Iowa poll shows ongoing shake-up

Most of the polls out of Iowa from the last two weeks point to two general trends: Barack Obama inching towards the lead among Democrats, and Mike Huckabee inching past Mitt Romney among Republicans.

With this in mind, the latest poll from Newsweek reinforces the prior, and exaggerates the latter.

The most dramatic result to come out of the poll, which is based on telephone interviews with 1,408 registered Iowa voters on Dec. 5 and 6, is Huckabee’s emergence from the shadows of the GOP race into the front runner’s spot in just two months. The ordained Southern Baptist minister now leads Romney by a two-to-one margin, 39 percent to 17 percent, among likely GOP caucus-goers. In the last NEWSWEEK survey, conducted Sept. 26-27, Huckabee polled a mere 6 percent to Romney’s 25 percent, which then led the field. Huckabee has also opened up a wide margin over the next three leading candidates, who all show signs of fading in Iowa: Rudy Giuliani, who dropped from 15 percent in the last survey to 9 percent in the current one; Fred Thompson, who fell from 16 percent to 10 percent; and John McCain, who slipped from 7 percent to 6 percent. “You rarely see anything like [Huckabee’s surge],” says Larry Hugick, who directed the polling for Princeton Survey Research Associates.

Given that no other recent poll shows this kind of dramatic lead for Huckabee, Newsweek’s poll certainly feels like an outlier, but if it’s even close to being accurate, I suppose the religious right activists have coalesced their choice. Indeed, for months, the GOP has a had something of a vacuum — there was no traditional, consistently conservative candidate George Allen was supposed to capture in this race. Romney tried to shore up this vote, but this is constituency that doesn’t like Mormons. Thompson was poised to win them over, but has proven to be a lackluster candidate. Huckabee is filling the void.

What’s more, the Newsweek poll also found that one in six (16%) Iowa Republicans admit they are less likely to support Romney because he is a Mormon — and the actual number is probably higher, but people are embarrassed about admitting it to the person conducting the poll.



As for the Dems, the Newsweek poll shows that it’s still anybody’s race.

Unlike the GOP race, standings in the Democratic campaign have not changed dramatically since the September NEWSWEEK poll in Iowa. However, Barack Obama has gained some ground, moving to within a point of Hillary Clinton among all Democratic voters (29 percent vs. 30 percent), with John Edwards in third place at 21 percent. Among those most likely to attend the caucuses, Obama has moved substantially ahead of Clinton, 35 percent to 29 percent, while Edwards falls back a bit, to 18 percent. Obama also gets more support from those who say they will “probably” attend a Democratic caucus (40 percent vs. 27 percent for Clinton). While the Illinois senator’s lead among Democratic caucus-goers in this poll is not large enough to be statistically significant, things seem to be trending his way, Hugick said. “It’s evolving into a two-person race, with Edwards hanging on,” he said. The close duel between Obama and Clinton depends a great deal on the way their competing strengths are perceived, the survey shows. Obama is much more likely than Clinton to be viewed as the candidate best able to bring about change (42 percent vs. 28 percent for Clinton) and as more personally likable (41 percent vs. 18 percent). Clinton, however, is viewed far more as the candidate with the right experience for the job (48 percent vs. 15 percent for Obama) and as the person most likely to defeat the GOP nominee (36 percent vs. 27 percent). One potential trouble sign for Hillary, however, is that in contrast to the 2004 Iowa caucuses, when John Kerry leaped into the lead on the basis of his electability, only about one quarter (23 percent) of likely Democratic caucus-goers say they are inclined to support a candidate with the best chance of defeating the GOP nominee.

Stay tuned.