Romney buoyed by new polls

With a new poll showing him making progress in Iowa, Mitt Romney said yesterday that he is doing better than he had expected at this point in the Republican primary race.

Seizing on a Zogby poll that has him in a statistical tie in the state with former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Arizona Senator John McCain, Romney asserted that his state-by-state campaigning was paying off. Another recent poll showed Romney with a lead in New Hampshire for the first time.

"Good news in those first two primary states," Romney said, though some question the methodology of both polls.

Romney acknowledged that polls go up and down over the course of the campaign -- another recent survey had him a distant fifth in South Carolina -- but he said he felt momentum right now after the first two Republican presidential debates, an appearance on "The Tonight Show" earlier this month, and a profile on "60 Minutes" over the weekend.

"We've been enjoying a terrific updraft," he said.

Romney was speaking to supporters, his staff, and the media at his campaign headquarters during a 24-hour fund-raising and organizing blitz, in which the campaign was hoping to sign up 24,000 new supporters between Tuesday night's debate and late last night. As of 5:30 p.m. yesterday, Romney said, the campaign had 16,000 new people on board.

Like other presidential candidates, Romney set up house parties around the country for supporters and their friends and family to watch Tuesday's debate, held at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Romney said there were nearly 1,000 house parties that night.

"This is the base," Romney said. "This is the foundation on which we're going to go all the way to the White House."