With four days until the Iowa caucues, there’s only eight points separating five candidates ahead of the Republican primary race’s first votes.
Gov. Mitt Romney, mired in second place for most of the year in Iowa as other GOP flavor of the month candidates came and went, is now in first place according to a new NBC/Marist poll out on Friday, taking the pole position with 23 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who just enjoyed a short time in first place himself, gets 21 percent. A battle for third place is brewing among candidates all making a play for the most conservative voters in the state, with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) getting 15 percent, Texas Gov. Rick Perry with 14, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 13.
The key in the NBC/Marist poll seems to be a battle between two priorities for the GOP. On the one hand, voters desperately want a nominee to carry the conservative mantle. On the other, they want to win in 2012. From NBC’s First Read:
Although just 7 percent of likely Iowa caucus-goers believe that Romney is the true conservative in the GOP field, he has two variables working in his favor, according to the poll. One, only 21 percent of likely caucus-goers say he’s unacceptable as the Republican nominee (compared with 35 percent for Gingrich and 41 percent for Paul).
And two, the conservative vote appears to be splintering between the various candidates, with voters not coalescing around a single Romney challenger.
Last month, Gingrich had a large lead over Romney (and the other GOP rivals) among Tea Party supporters.
But in this new poll, Tea Party supporters – who make up about half of all likely caucus-goers – are divided.
Santorum gets 20 percent from them, Romney and Paul 17 percent, Gingrich 16 percent, Perry 15 percent and Bachmann 10 percent.
Marist pollster Dr. Lee Miringoff went on to call this the Romney “dream scenario,” as a divided conservative vote in Iowa may deliver him the state after months of conventional wisdom that he couldn’t win there.
The NBC/Marist poll used 425 interviews with likely GOP caucus-goers conducted Dec. 27th and 28th. It has a sampling error of 4.8 percent.
