The much-anticipated Des Moines Register poll released last night is a clear boon for both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, who lead their respective fields, according to the survey.
Obama’s seven-point lead over Hillary Clinton, which shows a wider gap between the top Democrats than any of the Register’s previous polls, suggests that late momentum—the same phenomenon that pushed John Kerry to nearly 40 percent of the vote in 2004—is behind the Illinois Senator.
Most notably, the poll showed independent voters and first-time participants breaking his way.
For Huckabee, who is six points ahead of Mitt Romney, the numbers contradict other recent polls that suggested he had lost his lead to Romney. Those data prompted the former Massachusetts governor to publicly raise the stakes and claim that outright victory was within his reach.
But there’s a caveat for both Obama and Huckabee: this poll, the most authoritative pre-caucus indicator, saddles them with high expectations. If they do not win the caucus, even by a small margin, the media may declare them clear losers, and exaggerate the significance of even a narrow win by their opponents.
