Huckabee crowd goes wild with win

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

DES MOINES -- A roar went through Mike Huckabee's post-caucus rally party as Fox News, CNN, and NBC all called the GOP race for Huckabee.

Fox's entrance polls suggest Huckabee will get 36 percent, with Mitt Romney a distant second with 24 percent, and Fred Thompson at 18 percent.

It capped an emotional 15 minutes for the crowd watching Fox News on a huge projection TV in the corner of the room. At 7:40 p.m., Fox had begun giving out details of its entrance polls in the GOP race, starting with Huckabee's sizable lead.

The reason why Huckabee crushed the competition was clear: Turnout among evangelicals appears to have been huge: 60 percent of Republicans in Fox’s entrance poll identified themselves as evangelical Christians, versus 40 percent who didn’t.

Also interesting: Late-deciders broke Huckabee’s way 27 percent to 20 percent, suggesting that Romney's barrage of negative ads in the last week didn't work. Huckabee also was most likely to get the votes of people who said that they wanted a candidate who "says what he believes."

With each tidbit, the crowd, clustered around the giant screen, went nuts. Huckabee's campaign manager declared, "Governor Romney's campaign has the best organziation money can buy, but we've got the best volunteers anybody can hope for."

As he exited, the crowd broke into chants of "We like Mike!" Minutes later, Fox called the race for their candidate.