Huckabee vaults to 2nd in GOP race

WASHINGTON — Mike Huckabee has vaulted from nowhere into second place nationally in the Republican presidential race, riding a burst of support from evangelicals, Southerners and conservatives, a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll shows.

Meanwhile, according to a new Newsweek survey, Huckabee has also charged ahead of Mitt Romney in Iowa, where a recent AP poll had them in a virtual tie. The Newsweek survey shows Huckabee with 39 percent of the GOP vote in Iowa and Romney with 17 percent. Huckabee's lead among evangelicals in the early-caucus state is even more substantial.

The surge by the former Arkansas governor has come largely at the expense of Fred Thompson, according to the national survey by The Associated Press and Ipsos. Thompson has dropped after failing to galvanize the party's right-wing core as much as some had expected.

Rudy Giuliani remains the national front-runner, yet while his support has long been steady, it shows signs of fraying. Huckabee's growing strength in the South has come as the former New York mayor's support there has dropped, the poll found.

"Why not me?" Huckabee said in an AP interview. "I meet all the criteria. I'm conservative, but I think I appeal to a broader set of voters. And I think that people are also looking for someone with whom they can identify."

The nationwide AP-Ipsos poll showed Giuliani at 26 percent among Republican and GOP-leaning voters, about where he has been since spring. Huckabee has 18 percent, up from 10 percent in an AP-Ipsos survey a month ago and 3 percent in July.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona has 13 percent, Romney 12 percent and Thompson 11 percent.

Huckabee's ascent in the national poll echoed his upswing in Iowa, whose Jan. 3 nominating caucuses will be the first votes in the 2008 presidential campaign. A recent AP-Pew Research Center poll showed Huckabee in a virtual tie there with Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

While Romney and Huckabee share the lead in other recent Iowa polls, the Newsweek survey is the first to show the former Arkansas governor with such a dramatic margin. Beyond Huckabee's 39 percent and Romney's 17 percent, Thompson has 10 percent, Guiliani 9 percent, Ron Paul 8 percent and McCain 6 percent.

Among GOP evangelicals in the new poll, Huckabee leads Romney by 47 percent to 14 percent, though the two are even among non-evangelical Republicans.