KEY POINTS:
Less than two weeks before the small, rural and mostly white state of Iowa decides who it would like in the White House, it indicated yesterday that it will reject the favourites in favour of two long-shot candidates, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee.
A result such as this on January 3 would be revolutionary for Democrats and Republicans. It would confirm what other polls around the country are already showing: that voters are clamouring for change.
A win for Senator Obama and former governor Huckabee in the Iowa Caucuses would influence the rest of the important primary states.
A poll from the Des Moines Register newspaper said yesterday that Obama had pulled ahead in the race for the Democratic nomination, with Senator Hillary Clinton in second place. A nightmare scenario now looms for the Clinton campaign in Iowa should she slip further to third place.
It is the same story on the Republican side where former no-hoper, Mike Huckabee, has emerged as a political giant-killer. He has leaped ahead of his well-funded Republican rival Mitt Romney to grab first place in a poll of Republicans.
The Register said 29 per cent of Iowans who intend to brave January's freezing cold support him. That's an astonishing jump of 17 per cent since the last poll in early October when the former TV evangelist trailed both Romney and the former Law & Order television star Fred Thompson.
Southerners make popular presidential candidates. Running a seat-of-the-pants campaign, with little money in the bank, Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has tapped into a deep vein of support among Iowa's conservative Christians.
This is bad news for Romney who bet the house on winning in Iowa, investing more time and money there than any other Republican. He has a small army of full-time staff and has spent tens of millions of dollars on a blizzard of television and radio ads to little effect. The former Massachusetts governor has fallen 5 points since October.
Rudy Giuliani remains the Republicans' front-runner nationally, (he has all but given up on Iowa) but he too is seeing his once-commanding lead narrow. Huckabee has now jumped into second place, just two points behind him.
There is a growing sense that voters would prefer to "throw the bums out" by rejecting the status quo candidates in favour of relative unknowns.
Contenders will spend the next two weeks confronting voters who want change.
NATIONAL POLLS
1) NBC News/Wall Street Journal
Republican:
Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney tied 20 per cent
Mike Huckabee 17 per cent
Giuliani dropped 13 points
Romney gained 9 points.
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton 45 per cent
Barack Obama 23 per cent
John Edwards 13 per cent.
2) Reuters/Zogby
Republican:
Giuliani, 23 per cent
Huckabee 22 per cent
Romney 16 per cent
Huckabee has wiped out an 18-point deficit in one month.
Democrats:
Clinton 40 per cent
Obama 32 per cent
Edwards 13 per cent.
Clinton's lead has shrunk slightly. It was 11 points last month.
IOWA 1) Washington Post-ABC News
Republican:
Huckabee 35 per cent
Romney 27 per cent
Huckabee is up 11 points in a month.
Democrats:
Obama 33 per cent
Clinton 29 per cent
Edwards 20 per cent.
2) The Des Moines Register
Republican:
Huckabee 29 per cent
Romney 24 per cent
Giuliani 13 per cent.
Huckabee is up 17 per cent in a month with Romney down five.
Democrats:
Obama 28 per cent
Clinton 25 per cent
Edwards 23 per cent.
Obama is up 6 and Clinton down 4.
- INDEPENDENT
