The race is pretty close four ways in Iowa but Rick Perry is the new favorite among Republican voters in the state. Among announced candidates he's at 22% to 19% for Mitt Romney, 18% for Michele Bachmann, and 16% for Ron Paul. Further back are Herman Cain at 7%, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum at 5%, and Jon Huntsman at 3%.
If you throw Sarah Palin into the mix the numbers are pretty similar with Perry at 21%, Romney at 18%, Bachmann at 15%, Paul at 12%, and Palin registering at only 10%.
Perry's support is being built on Tea Party support and voters with very conservative positions on certain issues:
Only 33% of Republican voters in Iowa identify themselves as members of the Tea Party but a broad advantage with them is driving Perry's lead. He gets 32% to 22% for Bachmann, and 19% for Paul. Romney is all the way back in 6th place with those voters at only 6%. Romney doesn't need to win Tea Party voters to win in Iowa but he needs to do a whole lot better than that. With the majority of Republicans who don't consider themselves Tea Partiers Romney actually leads Perry and Bachmann with 30% to their 16% but it's not enough to make up for his poor performance with the far right faction of the party.
Perry's drawn some attention in the last week for his statements about global warming and evolution and although he's drawn ridicule from Democrats and Republican elites for them our polling suggests he's perfectly in line with the GOP base. Only 35% of Iowa Republicans believe in evolution to 48% who don't. With the ones who do believe in it Perry's in 4th place at 12%, putting him behind Romney's 24%, Paul's 18%, and Bachmann's 15%. But with the evolution deniers Perry is the overwhelming favorite at 32% to Bachmann's 19%, Romney's 15%, and Paul's 13%.
It's a similar story with global warming. Only 21% of GOP voters believe in it while 66% do not. Again with the believers Romney is in a strong first place at 31% to 15% for Paul, 13% for Bachmann, 11% for Huntsman, and only 9% for Perry. But with the much more numerous group of Republicans who think global warming is a farce Perry cleans up at 28% to 20% for Bachmann, 16% for Paul, and 13% for Romney, giving him the overall lead.
There even continues to be a pretty strong birther strain in Iowa. 48% of Republican voters believe Barack Obama was born in the United States but 32% still do not. With the ones who think Obama was born in the country, Romney edges Perry 25-22. That's more than overcome by Perry's 22-10 lead with the GOP voters who don't think the President is a legitimate US citizen.
Can you believe in global warming and evolution and still win the Republican Presidential nomination? I'm not sure you can given these numbers.
These numbers are very bad news for Michele Bachmann, and to a lesser extent Romney:
It's clear that Bachmann has gotten virtually no momentum out of her victory in the Ames Straw Poll. She was in 3rd place when we polled Iowa in June and she's in third place now. Beyond that her favorability numbers in the state have taken a significant hit. In June she had a 53/16 breakdown. Since then her positive number has dropped 6 points from 53% to 47%, and her negative number has climbed 19 points from 16% to 35%. Perry's now winning the voters on the far right that we showed her doing really well with throughout most of June and July. The day of her win in Ames may be remembered as the peak of her campaign.
In some sense the news is worse for Romney- he's actually losing support- going from 26% and the lead in June to 19% and second place now. There had been some thought that he might absorb Tim Pawlenty's support in the state and clearly that has not happened. But Romney probably doesn't need Iowa with New Hampshire serving as his firewall so these numbers still don't seem as bad for him as they do for Bachmann.
The other winner in the poll
Michele Bachmann may not have much momentum coming off of her strong performance in Ames but Ron Paul sure does. His 16% poll standing is up from 11% on our June poll of the state and his net favorability of +24 at 53/29 makes him the second most popular of 15 announced and potential candidates that we polled, behind only Perry's +32 at 56/24. While Paul is certainly still a very long shot for the nomination it looks likely that he will be a more relevant candidate this time around at least than he was in 2008.
Who's up and down
Here's the net favorability of everyone we polled in Iowa ranked from most popular to least popular, compared with where they were on our June poll:
| Candidate | Favorability (Net) | Change from June Poll |
| Rick Perry | 56/24 (+32) | +27 (was +5 at 21/16) |
| Ron Paul | 53/29 (+24) | +11 (was +13 at 42/29) |
| Rick Santorum | 44/22 (+22) | +11 (was +11 at 29/18) |
| Chris Christie | 43/21 (+22) | -8 (was +30 at 42/12) |
| Paul Ryan | 38/21 (+17) | -11 (was +28 at 42/14) |
| Sarah Palin | 52/36 (+16) | -12 (was +28 at 59/31) |
| Michele Bachmann | 47/35 (+12) | -25 (was +37 at 53/16) |
| Rudy Giuliani | 43/34 (+9) | -9 (was +18 at 49/31) |
| Herman Cain | 42/35 (+7) | -7 (was +14 at 38/24) |
| Mitt Romney | 45/38 (+7) | -10 (was +17 at 51/34) |
| Newt Gingrich | 42/44 (-2) | None (was -2 at 39/41) |
| Fred Karger | 3/25 (-22) | -7 (was -15 at 2/17) |
| Gary Johnson | 5/31 (-26) | -12 (was -14 at 4/18) |
| Jon Huntsman | 13/40 (-27) | -11 (was -16 at 7/23) |
| Buddy Roemer | 1/34 (-33) | -16 (was -17 at 4/21) |
Besides Romney and Paul the only other candidate who appears to be getting any traction right now in Iowa is Santorum, who's seen a healthy improvement in his favorability numbers. That still doesn't appear to be translating into many votes for Santorum but if Republican voters demonstrate that they at least like him that might help his cause for getting a show on Fox, which might be the best possible outcome for him out of this campaign.
No one is sinking faster than Bachmann. And it's interesting to note that Palin's popularity is on the decline as well, which makes you wonder how much of a factor she would be even if she did jump into the race at this point.
Full results here
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