Clinton pulls ahead in Iowa: poll
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hillary Clinton has pulled ahead of her Democratic presidential rivals in the early-voting state of Iowa, while screen star Fred Thompson is shaking up the Republican field, a poll out Sunday said.
Success in Iowa and New Hampshire — the two US states expected to hold the country’s first party contests in early January — is considered a major springboard to each side’s White House nomination.
Support for Senator Clinton among likely Democratic caucus voters in Iowa stands at 29 percent, the survey by the Des Moines Register newspaper said.
Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards was second on 23 percent, just ahead of Senator Barack Obama on 22 percent.
The race in Iowa appears to be much tighter than suggested by national polls, where Clinton enjoys a commanding lead over her main Democratic rivals in her bid to become America’s first woman president.
But the New York senator can take comfort from having overhauled Edwards since the most recent poll by the Des Moines Register in May, when she stood on 21 percent and he on 29. Obama was little changed from May.
The contest remains in flux after a Newsweek poll last weekend gave Obama the support of 28 percent of likely Iowa caucus-goers, compared to 24 percent for Clinton and 22 percent for Edwards.
In the Republican race, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani leads in the national polls but trailed a distant fourth in the new Iowa survey with just 11 percent, down from 17 percent in May.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney headed the party’s Iowa field on 29 percent, followed by Thompson on 18 percent and Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, on 12 percent.
Thompson, a former senator who is best known as star of the television drama “Law and Order,” has been accused by Washington pundits of running a lackluster campaign since entering the race late a month ago.
But he is running a solid second in national polls behind Giuliani, remains viable in the vital money race and is also competitive in New Hampshire.
The Des Moines Register said it surveyed 399 likely Democratic caucus participants, and 405 Republican ones, over October 1-3. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
