Two New Iowa Polls Show Different Results: Romney Surges Ahead in Rasmussen; Four Candidates within Four Points in WAA Poll – 12/21/11

Two new polls out of Iowa show very different views of what is happening there less than two weeks before voting in the Iowa Caucuses, January 3, 2012.

A new Rasmussen Poll shows Mitt Romney moving out to a 5-point lead in Iowa, now ahead of Ron Paul by a 25%-20% margin. Newt Gingrich is now third at 17%, with Rick Perry and Rick Santorum tied for fourth at 10% each. That’s a significant move up for Romney and for Santorum.

However, in a new We Ask America Poll, they find an incredibly tight race, with four candidates within four points of each other! In their survey, Paul leads with 19%, followed by Romney at 18%, Gingrich at 16%, and Michele Bachmann at 15%. That’s a shocking result for Bachmann, as no other poll in the last 21 days has her higher than 10%. Rasmussen has her at only 6%. Whether they are picking up on some real movement for Bachmann or whether it is just an outlier poll is yet to be seen.

The 7-Day Average of Polls from Iowa has Ron Paul with a narrow 1.2 point lead over Mitt Romney, with Newt Gingrich in third place, 6.5 points behind. There are now five candidates in double figures in the Iowa average, all within 11 points of each other – Paul, Romney, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann.