Consider this the baseline for Mike Huckabee’s Values Voter bounce, if any, as Rudy Giuliani falls back to Earth and the next round of the frontrunners’ sparring match makes ready to start.
I’m a pretty firm Fred Thompson supporter, and I hoped to see this surge of Giuliani’s taper off the same way Thompson’s sudden drop did, and it looks to me like that’s what’s happened, although with Giuliani with a long-term boost afterward. On October 5 it was Thompson 21, Giuliani 19, and now on October 21 it’s Thompson 21, Giuliani 24.
To me what should be interesting in the coming weeks is the effect of Mike Huckabee on the race. Between his favorable reviews in Washington this weekend, and the surge he seems likely to get from Sam Brownback’s supporters once the Senator pulls out of the race, I expect him to crack double digits.
As things stand now, Huckabee’s at eight percent according to Rasmussen, and isn’t even on the chart, but it seems to me that Rasmussen is going to have to start paying more attention to Huckabee now. John McCain is only at 11, putting him withing the MoE of Huckabee as it is.
It’s still a long race ahead. Between these top five candidates, 78% of the party is spoken for, leaving the undecideds and other candidate supporters with as much clout as the backers of either Giuliani or Thompson. It’s anybody’s race if these polls mean anything at all, and Huckabee’s probably going to make it all the messier before things shake out.