Can you spot the outlier in the recent Iowa polls?

A lot of attention was paid to the Public Policy Polling poll released Tuesday that showed Iowa tightening considerably, with Newt at 22 and Ron Paul at 21.

However, the media -- so willing to jump on any poll that shows Newt slipping -- ignores that this poll appears to be an outlier at this moment.

Another poll was released Tuesday afternoon that showed Newt at 27 and Paul at 17. And surprise, that poll received a tiny fraction of the coverage the PPP one did.

An analysis by Neil Stevens of RedState.com gives a good explanation on why PPP -- a very reliable polling firm -- is likely way off on this poll. They are including independents and Democrats in their poll.

Stevens:

Every time, and I mean every time, I bring up the fact that the Iowa Caucuses are closed [meaning only Republicans can vote in the GOP Caucuses], the reply is that “You can register up to the day of the caucuses to participate.” That’s true. But if Paul is not able to motivate his supporters to register, and if his people aren’t actually committed to caucus for Paul, then his support is soft, and isn’t going to show up.

So while these independents and Democrats are telling a pollster they would support Paul, they have to be considered pretty unlikely to turn out on January 3rd and vote for Paul.

What does the poll look like if only Republicans are included?

Newt 25. Paul 17.

Remember what the other Iowa poll from Tuesday looked like: Newt 27. Paul 17. Looks kinda similar, doesn't it?

And the average of Iowa polls from the past week: Newt 29, Romney 17, Paul 16.

So even though it's inconvenient for the media -- which wants to report about Newt falling more than anything -- the Public Policy Polling survey looks way out of whack with other Iowa polls.

"We understand a load of crap when we see it."

That's what Linda Upmeyer, the Iowa chair of Newt 2012, said of Mitt Romney (or, more accurately, his surrogates') attacks on Newt.

Former Rep. Greg Ganske, who was elected to Congress in 1994 and served under Gingrich when he was speaker of the House, suggested Romney only wanted to use the caucuses to tear down Gingrich ahead of the New Hampshire primary.

"Maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he doesn't care about winning Iowa. He just wants to tear down the speaker here and then focus on New Hampshire," Ganske said.

Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida polls

CNN released a batch of four polls today at 4 PM Eastern:

Iowa: Newt 33, Romney 20.

New Hampshire: Romney 35, Gingrich 26.

South Carolina: Newt 43, Romney 20.

Florida: Newt 48, Romney 25.

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In Iowa, Newt gets 35% support from women and 32% from men.

CBS/NYT Iowa poll: Newt 31, Romney 17, Paul 16, Perry 11

More results to come at 6:30 Eastern, says CBSNews.com.

ABC/Washington Post Iowa poll: Newt 33, Romney 18, Paul 18

Link to poll.

70% list Newt's "political experience" -- you know, those little things like welfare reform, 11 million new jobs, and four balanced budgets -- as a reason to support him.

With 31% to Romney's 20%, Newt is best seen in dealing with the economy.

Newt is also seen as dealing best with immigration. 38% list it as a "major reason to support"; 15% say it's a "major reason to oppose."

By a margin of 42-18, Newt beats Romney when likely voters are asked who has the best experience.

PPP Iowa survey: Newt 27, Paul 18, Romney 16

This confirms the two weekend polls in Iowa more or less.

Newt's favorability: 62-31%.

When asked who has the best chance to defeat Obama, 33% answered Newt and 22% answered Romney.

Public Policy Polling asked this question, which is basically a question on Newt's immigration position:

Do you think people who have immigrated to the United States illegally but have lived here 25 years, have paid taxes, and have obeyed the law should be deported or not?

Only 29% answered they should be deported. 44% said they should not. So it doesn't appear Newt's position is going to hurt him much.

Newt's not winning only because of his debate performance. He wins among those who have paid "a lot of attention," "some attention," and "not much attention at all" to the debates.

Newt is tied for first among those who are between 18 and 29 years old with Paul and Romney. Newt is second, 3 points behind Paul, among the 30-45 year old group. Newt leads with 46-65 year olds as well as 66 and up. Newt's best age group is the 66-and-up, winning 37% to Romney's 18%.

Newt is four points behind Romney and Paul among moderates, but blows them away among conservative and very conservative voters. Earlier "non-Romneys" were not able to hang that close to Romney among moderates.

There's a great deal of overlap, but the split between the tea party and non-tea party vote tells a similar story. Newt gets 35% of those inside the movement, Bachmann 23, Paul 14, Romney 4(!).

But whereas Cain, Perry, and Bachmann may have beat Romney by similar margins among tea party voters, Romney only beats Newt by one point among those who are not in the tea party. That margin was much wider with Cain, Perry, and Bachmann.

Marist Iowa poll: Newt 26, Romney 18, Paul 17

Newt leads among tea party voters, 32 to 16% for Paul and 13 for Cain.

Newt has the firmest support, even beating Ron Paul (a huge surprise to me).

Gingrich ties Paul on the question who most shares your values.

For those who say electability the most important issue for them, Newt wins 38 to Romney's 25.

By a margin of 36-26, Newt beat Romney on question of who is most experienced to govern.

Newt leads among both men and women.

Gingrich leads in all four regions of Iowa.

He wins both among those making under $75,000 and those making more.

He wins by 17% among Evangelicals.

Here's the link.

Newt 2012 has raised $5.5 million this quarter

"R.C. Hammond, a Gingrich spokesman, said the campaign has grown to 10 staff members in South Carolina, eight in New Hampshire, six in Iowa and two in Florida. By comparison, Mr. Romney has five staff members in Iowa, 10 in New Hampshire, and three in South Carolina," writes the Wall Street Journal.

And: “I watched him during the debates, and I think he’s the real deal,” said Richard Bailey, an aerospace analyst who traveled from San Diego to help.

I met Richard this weekend. He's very bright and a strong Newt supporter. He, like me, plans to make a couple of more trips before caucuses on January 3rd.

Des Moines-Register poll: Newt 25, Paul 18, Romney 16, Bachmann 8, Cain 8

The poll was (obviously) done before Herman Cain announced he was suspending his campaign, but he was clearly on the downside already.

Where do those voters go? Newt. Every poll says that. The only question is how many. My guess is the number is enough to effectively put Newt at 30%.

18% of all voters said Newt was their second choice, suggesting that as other campaigns fall off he can pick up even more ground.

We still need to keep pushing, but currently Newt is the clear frontrunner nationally, in Iowa, in South Carolina, and in Florida. He's running a close second in New Hampshire.

The trick now is to make sure our voters get to the polls and caucus sites.

Many have noted that this was about the time that Mike Huckabee shot ahead of Mitt Romney in Iowa four years ago.

The crowds Newt is attracting in Iowa

My three trips to Iowa -- which have started on July 15, September 29, and December 1 -- really demonstrate the upward arc of Newt's campaign.

In July, Newt's campaign was close to its nadir. I had every confidence that Newt would rebound, but there's no doubting that the campaign was hurting at that time. One of the reasons, however, I was still confident that Newt's support would increase was that everywhere we went -- whether an Iowa Cubs baseball game, a tea party event in Lamoni, or the Dallas County Fair -- people were very excited about Newt and praised his ideas.

That showed me that Newt's poll position -- he was in 5th place -- at that time was not because his message was not popular. It was in large part because the media was calling the campaign dead every day, and people were not eager to jump on board with a campaign that might end any day. (The most irresponsible thing that a number of reporters did was suggest that Newt might drop out at any time, despite no evidence to that.)

So, I thought, if Newt could get a small bump in the polls, that would prove the campaign's viability to others who were fond of Newt's solutions. I think it's fair to suggest Newt's Ames Debate performance -- when he called out Chris Wallace's "Mickey Mouse questions" -- was what got Newt 2012 started in an upward trajectory.

I was back in Iowa about a month-and-a-half later for Newt's unveiling of the 21st Century Contract with America. Newt was now essentially tied for third in the polls. You could sense the growing momentum.

Jen Green wrote on SteveDeace.com that it was about this time that Newt 2012 really started picking up steam. "After reading [the Contract's section on reforming the judiciary] I knew it was going to be a game-changer," Green wrote.

And this trip this weekend is really showing how much different Newt's lead in the polls is than those of Perry, Bachmann, Cain, etc.

Newt's first event Thursday was set up for 370 people. More than 500 showed up. Jason Clayworth of the Des Moines-Register noted that the crowd was bigger than the one Mitt Romney was able to draw at the same venue.

Newt's next appearance also had about 500 people.

The Polk County GOP Victory Dinner later that night had 400 people.

Newt -- whether it's South Carolina, Florida, or Iowa -- has been packing in the crowds recently. Bigger crowds than any other candidate this year.

Iowa -- and another Florida poll

I hope to catch up with the other news from Thursday in the next day. I wasn't able to do other posts because I drove up to Iowa in the morning.

(I do want to mention the new Florida poll. It showed Newt having 50% support. The last three Florida polls -- in order -- 41%, 47, 50.)

A ton of buzz surrounded Newt. It was great meeting the Iowa team. And I look forward to working with them the next couple of days.

Very exciting times. June 9 seems so long ago now.

Iowa poll: Newt 28, Paul 13, Romney 11

Among men, Newt gets 23%; among women, 33%. That darn gender gap!

The poll is from InsiderAdvantage.

Terrific polling news!

None of these polls have been fully released, so more details to come:

Iowa:

InsiderAdvantage also reporting brand new poll in Iowa tonight. Shows Gingrich on top with 28, Ron Paul is closest to him with 13. (link)

New Hampshire:

New InsiderAdvantage poll to be released tomorrow shows Romney and Gingrich in a statistical dead heat in New Hampshire. (link)

South Carolina:

New InsiderAdvantage poll from SC tonight! Gingrich 38, Romney 15, Cain 13, Paul 7, Perry 4, Bachman 3, Santorum 2, Someone else 5, undec 13 (link)

Florida:

Newt with big lead on 1st night of our FL poll...he and Romney may be only ones over 10% and he's uniting anti-Mitt vote (link)

Newt 2012's Iowa Chairwoman responds to misinformation from other campaigns

Linda Upmeyer, the Iowa State House Majority Leader and the Chairwoman of Newt's efforts in Iowa, "accused Bachmann of misrepresenting the candidate’s position for political gain," writes the Des Moines-Register.

“This is bumper-sticker politics where we are dealing either with confused or just, I guess, untruthful people,” Upmeyer said. Gingrich supports neither citizenship for illegal immigrants nor amnesty, she said."

Iowa poll: Newt 27, Romney 20, Paul 16

The poll, done by American Research Group, shows Newt winning 42% of the tea party vote.

When the voter based is narrowed down to just "definite" voters, Newt gets 32% of the vote, Ron Paul 17, and Mitt Romney 15%.

HotAir.com: "Videos: Newt’s latest greatest hits"

These two clips are from Saturday's Thanksgiving Family Forum in Iowa:

"Newt Schools Ron Paul on Founding Fathers: 'I Don't Think 'Liberty' Means Libertine' ":



"Newt's Tearful Testimony On Faith, Failures, Life, & Being President":

"Gingrich Passes the Social Conservative Test"

Byron York wrote the article. An excerpt:

Saturday evening's Family Leader forum in Des Moines was widely viewed as a key test for Republican presidential candidates trying to win the support of still-undecided Iowa social conservatives. And after an extraordinary and sometimes soul-baring discussion between six candidates gathered at First Federated Church, there are signs Newt Gingrich has come out ahead in the race to become the candidate behind whom social conservatives unite behind in their drive to stop Mitt Romney.

Discussions with some social conservative leaders after the forum brought praise for all of the participants, particularly Gingrich and Rick Santorum. But it turns out that pollster/strategist Frank Luntz, who conducted the forum, also ran a focus group after the session, and it appears Gingrich scored very well with the group. "I think the focus group that Luntz did afterward would bear out that Newt Gingrich came a long way Saturday night," says Family Leader president Bob vander Plaats. "I think it would bear out that Gingrich won the forum."

"When you watch it, you'll say, 'Wow,'" vander Plaats continued. "It also looked very good for Santorum, but primarily for Gingrich." The focus group was taped for later showing on Fox News.

York concludes:

What is happening now is that social conservatives are working their way through his liabilities, particularly his three marriages, and trying to decide if they can support the Gingrich of today -- not the Gingrich of 15 or 20 years ago -- without compromising social conservative principles. In the Family Leader forum Saturday, it appears that all involved made a big step toward doing that.

The Weekly Standard: The Iowa Frontrunner

From Michael Warren's piece:

Those oddities aside, Gingrich is likely catching on in Iowa because he’s usually one of the most eloquent Republican critics of Obama-style liberalism—within both government and the media. The audience in Jefferson groans in angry disbelief when he relates a familiar story about a dentist in New York defrauding Medicaid by filing 991 procedures a day. “[This] dental office in Brooklyn,” Gingrich says, “had somebody who stood out front and said, ‘If you loan us your Medicaid card, we’ll give you a free DVD player.’ ”

Voters across the largely agricultural state cheer when Gingrich takes on the regulatory regime of the Environmental Protection Agency, particularly a recent, widely reported proposed rule on dust. Gingrich says he guesses the regulation was written by “some person who lived in a high-rise air-conditioned apartment, who went down to ride in an air-conditioned subway to go to a high-rise air-conditioned office building [and who] sat in his windowless office and imagined dust.” In a part of the country where farming the dry prairie is a way of life and everyone regularly stirs up a cloud of dust while driving down a dirt road, that’s steak-tartare-quality red meat.

Warren quotes Newt:

“The real pedigree of this campaign is Goldwater in ’62 to ’64, and then Reagan from ’75 to ’80 in that they were idea-generated movements which evolved into a campaign,” he tells me. “They weren’t campaigns in the traditional Republican meaning of the word. And I think that’s essentially what we’re trying to do.”

(Video slideshow) Breakfast with Newt

Link to video.

(Video) Newt discussing education and other issues in Iowa

Link to video. (2:20)