Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) sits atop the GOP field in Iowa, according to a pair of Iowa presidential polls released Tuesday.
Walker took 21 percent of voters in a survey from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, a 1-percentage-point lead over Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
{mosads}That ranking also held in a Loras College poll, although about twice as many voters in that poll were undecided. Walker led the field with 12.6 percent, followed by 10 percent for Rubio and 9.6 percent for Bush. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the state’s 2008 caucuses and is expected to announce his bid next week, took fourth with 8.6 percent.
In the PPP survey, the Wisconsin governor is leading both the subset of voters that are calling for the most electable candidate, as well as those who want the most conservative candidate. Those two ideologies have split the Republican electorate at times, but both seem to be coalescing around Walker for the time being, according to both polls.
“In 2012 there was always a tension for Republican voters between getting a conservative enough candidate and getting one they thought could beat Barack Obama,” PPP President Dean Debnam said in a statement.
“At least in Iowa they seem to think Scott Walker is the guy who can check off both of those boxes.”
On the Democratic side, the PPP poll shows that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is maintaining her large lead over the Democratic field with 62 percent of the vote. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) follows with 14 percent. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley secured 6 percent of the vote, followed by 3 percent for former Sen. Jim Webb (Va.) and 2 percent for former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.
The poll did not test Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has regularly received support, despite her repeated assertions that she will not run. The survey also didn’t include Vice President Biden, who is also reportedly weighing a bid.
Clinton just finished a campaign swing through Iowa, where she eschewed the larger scale campaign roll out in favor of small events with average voters.
The PPP poll was conducted April 23-26 and tested 466 Democratic primary voters for a plus or minus 4.5-percentage-point margin of error and 462 Republican primary voters for a plus or minus 4.6-percentage-point margin of error. The Loras College poll was conducted April 21-23 and tested 509 likely Republican caucus-goers for a plus or minus 4.3-percentage-point margin of error and 491 likely Democratic caucus-goers for a plus or minus 4.4-percentage-point margin of error.