Mason-Dixon polls in IA, NH and SC show tight races in both parties

[Tender Branson]

Iowa:

Clinton: 27%
Obama: 25%
Edwards: 21%
Richardson: 9%

Huckabee: 32%
Romney: 20%
Thompson: 11%
McCain: 7%
Giuliani: 5%

New Hampshire:

Clinton: 30%
Obama: 27%
Edwards: 10%
Richardson: 7%

Romney: 25%
Giuliani: 17%
McCain: 16%
Huckabee: 11%
Thompson: 6%

South Carolina:

Clinton: 28%
Obama: 25%
Edwards: 18%

Huckabee: 20%
Giuliani: 17%
Romney: 15%
Thompson: 14%
McCain: 10%

http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/story/100715.html

Iowa:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/poll/1207iowadem.pdf
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/poll/1207iowagop.pdf

New Hampshire:

www.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/poll/1207nhdem.pdf
www.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/poll/1207nhgop.pdf

South Carolina:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/poll/1207scdem.pdf
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/static/pdf/poll/1207scgop.pdf

[Tender Branson]

Clinton's really in trouble right now. If the Winfrey press coverage after this weekend leads to a poll bump for Obama in the 3 states and undecided voters break for Obama, even lower turnout among younger voters may hand over Obama 3 crucial wins, or at least a good second place.

[Erc]

Thank god we're getting some decent polling out of these states.

Clinton seems to be doing better here in Iowa than in some of the other polling--is M-D catching something the other polls aren't, or is this just usual random chance?  It's well within the margin of error, in any event.  Edwards' relatively poor performance is worth noting.

Huck seems to have Iowa as securely in his possession as Romney did six weeks ago.  Romney at 20 is very worrying for his campaign.  He can't afford a devastating loss in Iowa (although it's better that everybody knows about it now as opposed to it being a surprise in January)--and coming third probably kills his campaign.  If other polls are an indicator, he's still got at least an 8-point lead over the Thompson/Giuliani, but I'd like to see a bit further down.

The NH & SC polls are very worrying for Clinton--serious damage control appears to be necessary.  If she doesn't win in Iowa, Obama could sweep 3 / 4 of the early states easily.  I'd like to see a poll out of Nevada one of these days.

Romney's lead in NH is a bit narrower than he'd like it to be...but Giuliani at 17 seems to indicate a low Huckabee result, which is a good thing for him.  It still looks like he's favored to hold onto the state unless Iowa turns into an unmitigated disaster.

SC is still looking like the 5-way race it looked like two months ago--only with Huckabee up an additional 10 points this time.  Huckabee's got the edge, but this is anyone's game.  Probably, all of the top 5 will stick around until SC at least--meaning that no candidate is likely to break 30 here.

[Verily]

Erc pretty much has it covered on the Republican side. On the Democratic side, they also have a poll of Nevada--and, if Obama wins Iowa and New Hampshire, he's close enough in Nevada to sweep through there, too. Clinton is in a very, very dangerous position.

[TheresNoMoney]

Obama hs the big momentum right now. The way things are trending, he will win all three of these states.

[Eraserhead]

Here are the second choice numbers in Iowa:

Obama 30%
Clinton 29%
Edwards 27%


....and the NV numbers for Dems:

Clinton 34%
Obama 26%
Edwards 9%
Richardson 7%


Go Obama!

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Rudy will need to rely on the urban areas of SC, like Charleston and Columbia, to win that state. The country folk will be on the Huckabee bandwagon. 5% in Iowa surprises me for him. That's a lot worse than i thought.

[ilikeverin]

Huzzah, Mason-Dixon!  Finally, polls we can trust.

I suspect this momentary tizzy for Obama will go away shortly.

[Erc]

One funny little statistic from the NH poll--Huckabee attracts only 1% of the vote from more pro-choice Republicans (49% of the sample).

Also, what on earth happened with Giuliani in IA?

[Mr. Morden]

Yeah, what's the deal with Giuliani in Iowa?  He's never been below 8% in any Iowa poll ever, and now he's at 5%?  Is he really crashing that badly, or is this an outlier?  Romney's 25% in NH is also lower than we've seen him there in quite some time.  He's been at 29-37% in all the other recent polls.

[Meeker]

I know Mason-Dixon is generally one of the more trusted polling outfits, but I'm a little skeptical of these polls. The MoE is 5 points, so really all we know about leaders is that Huckabee is ahead in Iowa by some amount and that Romney is probably ahead by some amount in New Hampshire. Other than that all the leaders are within the MoE, and those numbers that seem to be a little odd (Rudy at 5% in Iowa, Paul doing slightly worse everywhere than he has been) could also be rather affected by the MoE.

[© tweed]

Rudy is a beast.

[Mr. Morden]

Too bad they didn't poll Michigan.  We need more polls on the GOP race in Michigan.

[Aizen]

Rudy is a beast.

a beastly failure