Poll Shows Romney With Wide Lead in New Hampshire
Huckabee at 9% In Contrast to Advance in Iowa

By Jon Cohen and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney holds a wide lead over his Republican rivals in New Hampshire, where he is seen as the strongest leader and most electable presidential candidate in the field, but the GOP race there remains unsettled a month before the nation's first primary, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Romney has the edge on most issues and candidate qualities tested in the new poll, and his strength in New Hampshire contrasts with his far shakier position in Iowa. He led throughout the summer and fall in Iowa, but recent polls show him locked in a competitive race with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

Although Huckabee has surged in Iowa, whose caucuses mark the official start of the presidential nominating campaign on Jan. 3, that success has not yet translated to New Hampshire, which has a more socially liberal GOP electorate. New Hampshire voters will cast ballots five days after Iowa.

Romney enters the final month of campaigning with a sizable lead drawing support from 37 percent of likely primary voters, nearly double that of his closest competitor, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who registers at 20 percent. Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is third at 16 percent.

Nevertheless, New Hampshire remains an open contest. In 2000, half of GOP voters said they made their final decision in the last week of the campaign. Now, nearly two-thirds of Romney's supporters said there is a chance they could change their mind and vote for someone else.

Huckabee's rise in Iowa has made him the target of his Republican rivals, but he is stuck in the single digits in New Hampshire, with 9 percent. Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.), who has predicted he will raise more than $12 million this quarter, is at 8 percent. Fred D. Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee who entered the GOP race to considerable fanfare in September, gets the support of 4 percent of likely voters.

Romney's strategy for securing the nomination has long been predicated on winning both Iowa and New Hampshire. But as his lead in Iowa has disappeared, New Hampshire may become even more critical to his calculus.

As a former governor from neighboring Massachusetts, Romney has been a frequent presence in the state, holding nearly 100 events there so far this year, according to the washingtonpost.com Campaign Tracker. Voters have noticed: Half of those surveyed said Romney has "campaigned the hardest" of any candidate in the state.

Romney also has double-digit advantages as the Republicans' most electable candidate, the strongest leader, the truest representative of GOP core values and the one who would do the most to bring change to Washington. He and McCain rank about even as the candidate with the best experience to be president, and as the field's most honest and trustworthy candidate.

Romney also scores high on the issues. On six out of eight issues, he holds significant leads. By a 25-percentage-point margin, Romney is viewed as tops on the economy, and he has large advantages over his closest rival on health care (24 points), taxes (20 points), social issues such as abortion and same-sex civil unions (18 points), the budget (20 points), and immigration issues (15 points).

Romney has his weaknesses, however, on other top issues. Giuliani and McCain (31 percent each) outpace Romney (17 percent) as the candidate most trusted on terrorism. McCain has an edge on Iraq, with 36 percent calling him best on this issue, compared with 20 percent each for Giuliani and Romney.

As in Iowa, several issues are motivating GOP voters in New Hampshire. When voters are asked to list their top two concerns, six issues are cited by 10 percent or more. Topping the list are Iraq and immigration, each cited by about three in 10 voters.

Tomorrow, Romney is scheduled to address religion in public life and his Mormon faith, but few New Hampshire voters are weighing his religion: Nearly nine in 10 said Romney's Mormonism does not make a difference in their votes.

At this point, Romney holds the edge among most voter groups, leading among both men and women, across age and education categories and among Protestants and Catholics alike. He is winning both Republicans and independents, who were crucial to McCain in 2000. Among conservatives, Romney has an advantage of better than 2 to 1 over his closest competitor (39 percent to McCain's 17 percent).

The poll also highlights the challenges facing others who may be dependent on a strong showing in New Hampshire to keep their candidacies moving forward.

Giuliani's distant third-place standing represents a growing problem for a candidate who continues to lead the national polls, although by narrowing margins. He began television advertising in New Hampshire just before Thanksgiving, but the poll suggests that, so far at least, he has not gained ground.

Giuliani's advisers have long said he can sustain early losses and still capture the nomination with victories in Florida and many of the states holding primaries on Feb. 5. But Giuliani recently predicted a victory in New Hampshire.

McCain, who won the New Hampshire primary in 2000, picked up a potentially valuable endorsement over the weekend from the Manchester Union Leader, the state's most widely circulated newspaper. With a flagging Iowa campaign, McCain is again counting on New Hampshire to give his candidacy momentum heading to South Carolina, where that state's Republican voters will cast ballots on Jan. 19.

McCain's victory in 2000 was largely fueled by independent voters, who broke strongly for the senator, in contrast to self-identified Republicans, who preferred George W. Bush. In this poll, McCain does about the same among independents (19 percent) as he does among Republicans (21 percent).

Huckabee's emergence into the top tier in Iowa this year is also based on strong support from a particular segment: Christian conservatives. His more limited appeal in New Hampshire may reflect the vastly different GOP electorates in that state and in Iowa.

While 37 percent of likely Republican Iowa caucus-goers are evangelical Protestants, they make up only 15 percent of likely GOP voters in New Hampshire. Likely New Hampshire voters are also much less likely than their counterparts in Iowa to describe themselves as conservative and to attend weekly religious services. They are more than twice as likely to support legal abortion in most or all cases.

This telephone poll was conducted Nov. 29 to Dec. 3, among a random sample of 488 likely voters in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points. Error margins for subgroups are larger.

Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.