In the latest poll from Zogby International--the premier polling organization in the United States and the one that carries the most weight--former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has moved from third place to first place.
The poll, conducted May 14 and 15, 2007, included 511 likely participants in the Democratic caucus next January, which carries a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points. The survey of likely Republican caucus-goers includes 478 respondents and carries a margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points.
Romney, who is also on top of the heap in the GOP race in New Hampshire, has nearly doubled since the last Zogby Iowa polling in March and has nearly quadrupled since January. Meanwhile, McCain has held steady over the same time period, while Giuliani has returned to where he was at the beginning of the year after a solid bump up in March. The percentage of undecided in the GOP race has remained constant at 22% throughout.
Romney’s jump comes as his organization in Iowa develops, and as Giuliani has wrestled with the abortion question and reports that he might downplay corn-fed caucus-goers in favor of GOP voters who will choose their favored presidential candidates in the weeks immediately after the Iowa caucuses. Romney is performing quite well among the very conservative and the conservative, while Giuliani has lost significant support among those likely voters -- this coming after Romney’s strong performance on the CBS newsmagazine program 60 Minutes.
This is significant for Mitt Romney. His lead over Giuliani and McCain is small, but the fact that he is in first place before taking the margin of error into account is huge.
It's going to be interesting to see where the Governor's numbers go from here. Based on his performance last night, I can only see them going in one direction...
Up.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com
