Newsweek Poll A Gift To Mitt Romney?

Bear with me... yes, it shows Mike Huckabee at 39% to Mitt Romney's 17%.

[beat].

But -- Iowa now may be Huckabee's to lose and Romney's to win.

And it's always easier to beat expectations when you're expected to lose.

This poll's sample size is huge -- 1,400+ voters -- the telephone calls were Wednesday and Thursday. The margins of error for the likely caucus goer subgroups are +/- 6%.

The Democratic race: a tie. Though Obama's supporters are more likely to caucus than Clinton's, at this point. Edwards still hovers around the 20 percent mark, and his campaign released its own internal poll today showing a tied race. All three Democratic campaigns agree that the race is essentially tied, but all three believe that their candidate has an organizational edge.

Comments

Wha? 39% ?!?

And this survey is of REGISTERED voters, not just highly attuned likely caucus goers. That makes the results all the more unbelievable.
And this, with just a few weeks of TV/radio spots and very little voter contact. I think this is an outlier, but if it isn't, Mike Huckabee is a political phenomenon the likes of which haven't been seen since, well... Pat Robertson comes to mind in 1988.

Posted by willie | December 7, 2007 6:02 PM

huckabee's to lose? that's a bit of a stretch.

Posted by JC | December 7, 2007 6:23 PM

MARC AMBINDER

If you don't stop shilling for Romney, I will remove your blog from my favorites list. Seriously.

I come here for fair and balanced commentary. Don't turn your blog into a Romney circle-jerk a la Hugh Hewitt and K-Lo.

Thanks.

Posted by RothNRA | December 7, 2007 6:27 PM

People are getting way too excited over noise in the polls, and way too excited over blog headlines.

But be nice to Roth, or he will stamp his foot and not read your blog and not be your friend ever ever ever.

As someone who would much prefer an Obama-Huckabee result, I think it would be idiotic to count out campaigns with serious caucus organizations, particularly Edwards and Romney, which could easily produce results ten points better then the polls.

Posted by c | December 7, 2007 7:51 PM

c,

I resent your implication that I am overreacting. I'm deeply offended. I demand an apology and/or retraction.

Posted by RothNRA | December 7, 2007 9:25 PM

An Edwards internal poll was released today, and it has Edwards stronger than in the Newsweek poll, at a strong second. Which is expected, I guess, from an internal poll.

Posted by Daniel | December 7, 2007 9:39 PM

An Edwards internal poll was released today, and it has Edwards stronger than in the Newsweek poll, at a strong second. Which is expected, I guess, from an internal poll.

Posted by Daniel | December 7, 2007 9:39 PM

... the telephone calls were Wednesday and Thursday.

The Dumond case and Reverend Huckabee's penchant for accepting in-kind "gifts" did not start getting traction until Thursday. With additional reporting on Dumond and Reverend Huckabee's entitlement program getting more sunlight, look for him to be gone by February 5th. Reverend Huckabee is finished. Finito. Done. The Dumond case is not going away.

Like many public figures, Reverend Huckabee has not learned this simple lesson: Its the dissembling and lying about the scandal, stupid!

Ask the other former Arkansas Governor about that.

Posted by Cinderella Ferret | December 8, 2007 11:09 AM

Dang, dude, why don't you and Hugh get a room? This is really grossing me out.

Posted by K T Cat | December 8, 2007 11:52 AM

I agree with what RothNRA said.The pro-Romney bias is getting disgusting.

So far we have a debate where he appeared as a snakeoil salesman presented as a win, his Mormonism speech to be a triumph and the poll that shows signs that the speech isn't working (as Huckabee is leading 47-14 among evangelicals) presented a as problem of expectations for Huckabee.

Ok. Let Huckabee kick Romney's ass by 10% even though Romney would have spend ten of millions of dollars and Huckabee less than a million in Iowa. It's going to be a great expectations game victory for Romney!

Posted by Nick Kaufman | December 8, 2007 2:34 PM

Ambinder is exactly right. It's all about the expectations game in the early going. Bill Clinton showed us that: lost to Harkin in Iowa and Tsongas in New Hampshire, and then went to win the nomination, fueled by the momentum he had gained not from early wins, but from early expectations beating. And you don't have to be a shill for Romney to objectively assess the situation and conclude the expectations dampening probably helps him: I'm definitely voting Democrat in 2008. And if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to pick a Republican president, it would be John McCain. All that said, I still think Romney's better off being the Iowa underdog at this stage. I think the same thing is likely true for Hillary Clinton.

Posted by Jasper | December 8, 2007 3:21 PM

Put down the Kool Aid, Jasper. Mitt has spent money like crazy in Iowa and has been there for months, creating as thorough a ground team as possible. If he gets beaten there, even by as little as 1%, it can't be painted as anything other than a complete catastrophe for him.

His whole strategy was to win early and often and use that momentum to overcome his deficits in the states where Rudy was in the lead. What's his strategy now? To avoid being stomped into the ground in every state and instead come in a close second or third everywhere? What kind of strategy is that?

There aren't any wild card teams at the end, guys. Mitt losing in Iowa is not a good thing for him.

Posted by K T Cat | December 8, 2007 4:30 PM

I am astonished at how bonkers much of the demographic for the Republican base is. All you nuts that came over from townhall. shutup. these 50 year old men and their smashmouth dumb comments prove the problems with the rural red state nonsense.

Posted by mikeVA | December 8, 2007 4:47 PM

If he gets beaten there, even by as little as 1%, it can't be painted as anything other than a complete catastrophe for him.

Utter nonsense. If Romney heads into Iowa trailing Huckabee in the opinion polls by, say, eleven points, and "only" loses by two points, he'll be just fine. The public doesn't follow the intricacies of campaign finances in the manner of the political junkies who frequent blogs like this one.

I'm not, mind you, saying any candidate can put off first place finishes indefinitely. I sense things beginning to stir in New Hampshire for John McCain. A failure to place first in New Hampshire, I would agree, would be fatal for the Mittster. That's largely because -- as a result of his favorite son status and consistent poll leads in the Granite state -- the expectations are that Romney should win.

Posted by Jasper | December 8, 2007 5:27 PM

Spending 300 thou and getting ahead of a man who spent 14 million indicates that once people beyond political junkies actually examine the Romney, they choose somebody else.

Fabulous news for the ever-shrinking 'evangelicals for Mitt", no doubt.

Posted by Carol McKinley | December 8, 2007 6:19 PM

Why is it that nobody learns from Dan Quayle's experience: saying "I'm like JFK" is not a good strategy.

Besides, what JFK said was, 'Yeah, I'm a catholic, but I believe in separation of church and state'. Compare this to Romney 'I'm a mormon, but I am religous and that's all that matters, religion eqauls freedom'

JFK addressed the fears of the secular electorate. Romney tried to address the fears of the religous electorate, but it only made things worse, because it highlighted his LDS beliefs.

Posted by Krassen | December 8, 2007 7:00 PM

His whole strategy was to win early and often and use that momentum to overcome his deficits in the states where Rudy was in the lead. What's his strategy now?

Probably the same. Winning New Hampshire and Michigan instead of winning Iowa, New Hampshire and Michigan still puts Mitt in a pretty good position, I would think. Especially since he's sitting on a half billion dollar fortune, so money's not an issue, and especially since Huckabee's early (premature?) peaking will invite -- and is already inviting -- significantly greater scrutiny of the former Arkansas governor's record.

Of course, a bad loss in Iowa -- one that met or exceeded expectations -- would hurt Mitt's campaign, er, badly. I'm not claiming otherwise. I just don't think it's a foregone conclusion nearly a month out that the margin will be "bad." And one reason for this is that the pundits will now expect a Huckabee blowout.

If I were Huck's campaign manager, I'd much prefer that my candidate's big move in the polls take place closer to the caucuses -- in similar fashion to John Kerry's surge in 2004 (I'd feel the same way were I managing the campaign of Barack Obama, by the way.). It's hard to hold onto a single state lead for several weeks in a volatile political season.

Anyway, John Kerry made his move so late -- surging literally in the last ten days or so before the vote -- that Howard Dean's campaign never had a chance to react. This is definitely not the case this time around. Still, I think Huckabee's biggest potential challenge isn't the inevitable counterattack (attack ads, etc.) by Mitt Romney. His biggest problem is that, by coming on strong so early, he gives Romney voters in other early states -- especially New Hampshire -- lots of time to reconsider their support of Mitt, and ponder the candidacies of others. My gut feeling is that this is good news for John McCain, who is now polling second in some New Hampshire polls. An actual victory in New Hampshire for McCain would mean a very different race indeed.

Posted by Jasper | December 8, 2007 7:10 PM

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/state_toplines/michigan/michigan_gop_primary_toplines_december_4_2007

According to Rasmussen, Romney is now losing to Huckabee in Michican. Another gift for the Romney campaign.

Posted by Carol McKinley | December 8, 2007 8:28 PM

I don't know who is advising Huckabee but if it were me, I would tell him to skip New Hampshire. Ignore it totally. Focus on Iowa and South Carolina.

Posted by RothNRA | December 8, 2007 8:58 PM

It is pretty ridiculous to think that Huckabee is in a worse position now than he was several weeks (days, even) ago. If I was an outsider like Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo (or anyone at all...), I would think it's infinitely better to be scrutinized and in the lead than be an outsider and face little/no scrutiny. Just because there are minuses to go along with the positives does not mean that those minuses are as significant.

While Jasper is right that it would be more advantageous to have surged days before the primaries than a month out... it only means that Huckabee's position is worse comparative to some more idealistic alternative, rather than in absolute terms.

This whole narrative is just another cheap way of trying to find something to slam Huckabee on (not that there's nothing). Even by the argument presented in the post, this is the complete reverse of a gift to Romney: he is in the process of failing to meet expectations while Huckabee is in the process of exceeding his.

Even if expectations are then lowered and Romney exceeds those, the only thing he wins is the position he originally had, which isn't that great a gift or a net gain.

Lastly, I don't really think "expectations" work that way- I doubt Romney's identity is going to get reinvented or that we are going to begin looking at a multi-multi-multi-millionaire who has been in the running for months as an outsider in the next 30 days. This is a gift to Huckabee, we all know it.

Posted by glenstein | December 8, 2007 9:07 PM

Roth, if I were advising Huckabee, I would suggest that he spend all his time in New Hampshire. Iowa, South Carolina and now Michigan are going to be traps for him now that he's doing so well there. Following the logic of this post, no candidate should do anything other than hide out in states where they're trailing badly, hoping against hope that they don't actually start doing well there, too.

Come to think of it, that would make for a great race, wouldn't it? Sort of like a game of Pass the Parcel.

Posted by K T Cat | December 8, 2007 9:17 PM

I can't believe what I am hearing from Huckabee supporters. Cute Christmas cards are supposed to prevent the coming recession?

SCARY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY #26:
Huckabee and Guiliani have nothing for the economy compared with Romney's business and economic acumen. Will you still be complaining about Romney's faith when they lay you off and foreclose your home? Get real, and don't get me started about Huckabee as a foreign policy disaster. Huckabee and Ahmadinejad sitting across at a table???? That's classic, what a nightmare.

Take all of the t-shirts mocking Bush you see at the mall and insert Huckabee's face. That's what college kids may be wearing until 2012. Bush haters are going to FEAST on Huckabee, what a goober...there's a good image for the Republican stigma. Are you kidding me??

Why don't we all vote for an inferior candidate merely because he's not LDS. Evangelicals are going to ruin this nation.

Posted by jenner | December 19, 2007 7:12 PM