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Huckabee Expands Lead Over Romney

Editor: Alan Gray, NewsBlaze

DES MOINES, Iowa - The first presidential nominating contest in Iowa saw a boost to Republican Mike Huckabee, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

In the Republican race, Mike Huckabee expanded his lead to six points, 31 to 25 percent, over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the one-time leader in Iowa who has attacked Huckabee for his record as Arkansas governor.

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson is in third place at 11 percent and Arizona Senator John McCain slipped two points to 10 percent. Texas Representative Ron Paul also registered 10 percent.

About 6 percent of Republicans remain undecided, leaving room for late swings.

The rolling poll of 914 likely Republican caucus-goers was taken Sunday through Wednesday and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

Iowa opens the process of choosing the next U.S. president on Thursday night, kicking off a state-by-state battle to choose Republican and Democratic candidates for the November election to replace President George W. Bush.

Huckabee gained three points on Romney, the gains following Monday's news conference where he said he would not air an ad attacking Romney because he wanted to keep the race positive - and then showed it to reporters.

The move was heavily criticized in the media - but his numbers have climbed since, Zogby said.

"Everyone outside of Iowa laughed at what appeared to be a Huckabee gambit, but Iowa Republicans seem to think it was genuine," he said.

"Huckabee is not pulling away, but it's now a six-point lead and he has moved above 30 percent."

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has largely bypassed Iowa to focus on later voting states, is at 6 percent. California Rep. Duncan Hunter is at 1 percent.

The rolling tracking poll concludes with these results. In a rolling poll, the most recent day's results are added while the oldest day's results are dropped in order to track changing momentum. Full poll results and questionnaire are available on www.zogby.com.

Source: Reuters