Romney lengthens lead in Iowa

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

A new University of Iowa poll released today has good news for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and bad news for his two major Republican presidential rivals, who are taking a pass on Saturday's GOP straw poll in Ames. For one of them, Arizona Republican John McCain, the survey shows the bottom falling out of his candidacy in the first caucus state.

"Republicans appear to be punishing both (former New York mayor Rudy) Giuliani and McCain for their unwillingness to compete in the Aug. 11 straw poll, while Romney's campaign has hit its stride," said David Redlawsk, the poll's director and political science professor.

The survey of more than 300 respondents who said they were Republican caucus goers showed Romney leading with 27 percent, up from 17 percent in a poll in March, followed by Giuliani at 11 percent, a drop of nine percentage points from his March showing.

Former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, who has not officially entered the race, was at 6.5 percent, up from 5 in March, followed by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo, both at 4.2 percent.

McCain got support from 3.2 percent, a precipitous drop from his 21-percent showing in the university's March survey.

The new poll, however, showed 31.1 percent of Republican caucus goers were still undecided, up from 23 percent in March, and more than 72 percent were "very" or "somewhat" likely to change their preference before the caucuses.

The margin of error for the survey, which was conducted from July 29 through Aug. 5, is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

Redlawsk said detailed poll results on the Democratic presidential race would be released later this week.