(Newsweek Poll) Huckabee Surges, Obama Gains in Iowa

[sabra]

Source: Newsweek



The new NEWSWEEK poll shows the former Arkansas governor now has a two-to-one lead over Romney, while Barack improves against Hillary.



Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has vaulted over his major GOP challengers to take a commanding lead in the race to win the Iowa caucuses, while Barack Obama continues to edge ahead of Hillary Clinton among Democrats likely to participate, a new NEWSWEEK poll shows.

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 ," says Larry Hugick, who directed the polling for Princeton Survey Research Associates. Hugick added that the reason has as much to do with a leeriness of the other candidates among Republican voters as Huckabee's folksy success on the stump. "He's filling a vacuum," Hugick said. "Nobody on the Republican side was getting strong support."

The poll, which has an overall margin of error of 3 percent, also indicated that on the Republican as well as the Democratic side Iowa is increasingly becoming a two-person race. Among likely GOP caucus-goers, 57 percent name Huckabee as their first or second choice and 39 percent give Romney as their first or second choice. On this measure, Thompson is a distant third, with just 20 percent.

Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/id/74215

[Teaser]

1. Let's hope he's peaking too early

He's a formidable candidate. I'm just not sure the money wing of the Repugs will let him get the nomination.

[maseman]

2. Didn't Howard Dean do the same thing

and then petered-out.

[trashcanistanista]

3. I agree, he is formidable.

He is scary. He reaches the 29%. We can not sit back and relax just yet.

[krabigirl]

4. I hope so. He scares me...I think I'd have to move if he was elected.

[fujiyama]

6. He may be formidable

but he has plenty of baggage, that any Dem should be able to use against him.

That said, he's really about the republicans' only hope at this point.

[Faygo Kid]

5. The neocons will never allow Huckabee the nomination. By the way, he's nuts.

The neocons never saw this one coming, and they are spitting tacks about it. Let the GOP nominate him. He's nuts. He has already overreached, but has gotten away with it because he was a second-tier candidate. Eventually somebody will ask him whether God might place him in office to bring about Armageddon. When he answers in the affirmative, it's over.

Any of the Dems would crush this nutcase. Mr. Smiley Face does not have the neocons on Board. He won't win the nomination, and he definitely won't win the election.

[calimary]

7. I hope so, but I don't dare underestimate the gullibility and stupidity

and shallowness of many Americans. They fall for "nice" and "aw shucks" EVERY TIME. Look what happened in the last two election cycles (when the folksy, "nice," "common-touch" guy with whom so many people thought it'd be fun to go have a beer got close enough to steal it. TWICE).

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE HIM. And get on that oppositional research!!!!!!! Spread the word about those "Willie Horton Eruptions."