2012 Poll: Huckabee Up Double Digits in Iowa

Governor Mike Huckabee

If the Republican candidates for President next year were Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and John Thune who would you vote for?

Mitch Daniels ………………………………………….. 1%
Newt Gingrich …………………………………………. 13%
Mike Huckabee ……………………………………….. 30%
Sarah Palin …………………………………………….. 15%
Ron Paul ………………………………………………… 6%
Tim Pawlenty ………………………………………….. 4%
Mitt Romney……………………………………………. 18%
John Thune…………………………………………….. 3%
Someone else/Undecided…………………………. 10%

With Mitt Romney dominating the early New Hampshire primary race in a recent PPP poll, Iowa’s caucus will be an important early opportunity for an alternative candidate to emerge heading into New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada (where today’s release also shows Romney with a significant lead). Mike Huckabee and Romney took first and second place, respectively, in the Iowa caucus three years ago, and remain in those same spots in an early look at next year’s race. Luckily for Huckabee, he has retained a little more of his strength than has Romney.

After taking 35% of delegates in 2008, Huckabee now earns 30% of the first-choice votes to Mitt Romney’s 18%. Romney earned 25% in 2008. Romney is followed by Sarah Palin’s 15%, Newt Gingrich’s 13%, Ron Paul’s 6%, Tim Pawlenty’s 4%, John Thune’s 3%, and Mitch Daniels’ 1%.

Huckabee would be bolstered by the other candidates’ supporters, if they are not viable in a particular caucus, getting twice as many (19%) second-choice votes statewide as Romney (9%) does. Palin (13%) and Gingrich (12%) could also benefit a little. 

Romney suffers, as in many states, with conservatives. At 25%, he almost matches Huckabee’s 29% of moderates, but he gets only half of Huckabee’s support with the conservative supermajority which will dominate caucus-night participants, placing a distant third at 15% to Huckabee’s 30%, Palin’s 17%, and just ahead of Gingrich’s 14%. 

PPP tested the favorability ratings of 13 potential nomination contenders, and found that except the four frontrunners and 2008 candidates Paul and Rudy Giuliani, the other seven are unknown to between half and three-quarters of these seasoned Republican voters. These candidates will have plenty of flesh-pressing and house partying to do between now and next year if they want to survive past the early contests.

“Mike Huckabee continues to be very formidable in Iowa,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “That leads to two important questions: is he even going to run and if he does and wins Iowa again can he build on that to a greater extent than he did in 2008?”

PPP surveyed 494 usual Iowa Republican primary voters from January 7th to 9th. The survey’s margin of error is +/-4.4%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.