Romney and Clinton Remain On Top In Iowa

With 75 days until the Iowa Caucuses (at least the Republican Caucus), Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton remain atop their respective party’s field in the race for president as measured by the first Rasmussen poll of Iowans (650 likely Republican caucus voters and 1,007 likely Democratic caucus voters; the poll was conducted October 10th and 14th).

Both candidates were recently projected by the University of Virginia’s politcal expert Dr. Larry Sabato to face off in the general election. With Romney only polling competitively in the early primary states (and not polling competitively at all in national polls), Sabato must subscribe to the theory that if a candidate wins these early races, the positive media coverage—and perhaps the desire for voters to be on the ‘winning side’—propels the candidate to win the nomination. Clinton is leading in both national polls as well as nearly every public state poll across the country.

In the new Rasmussen poll, Romney’s support is measured at 25 percent, followed by Fred Thompson (19 percent), and Mike Huckabee (18 percent). This is Huckabee’s strongest polling numbers to date in the Hawkeye State. Rudy Giuliani came in fourth at 13 percent, followed by John McCain (6 percent), Sam Brownback (3 percent), Tom Tancredo (2 percent), Ron Paul (2 percent), and Duncan Hunter (1 percent).

On the Democratic side, Clinton remained in front with 33 percent, followed by John Edwards (22 percent), Barack Obama (21 percent), Bill Richardson (7 percent), and Joe Biden (4 percent).

Eleven percent of likely Republican caucus voters and eleven percent of Democratic caucus voters were undecided.