Trump surges in Iowa

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker holds a 9-percentage-point lead in the Republican caucus contest in Iowa, according to a new poll from New Jersey's Monmouth University released Monday.

That's in keeping with a variety of Iowa polls over the past two months for Walker, the union-busting governor of a neighboring state. Perhaps the most noteworthy finding in the survey, though, was the degree to which reality TV star, real-estate developer and self-professed billionaire Donald Trump has surged.

He is in second place in the crowded GOP field, backed by 13 percent of Republican voters who told the Monmouth pollsters they were likely to vote in the Iowa caucus, the first contest in the presidential nominating process, scheduled for Feb. 1.

Monmouth's second tier, as it were, is retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, with 8 percent; followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 7 percent; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 7 percent; and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, at 6 percent.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was backed by 5 percent of respondents, as was the libertarian-leaning Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who announced his candidacy recently, was supported by 4 percent of likely GOP Iowa voters – a better showing than he has managed nationally. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who won the caucuses four years ago by eight votes, was lagging with support from 3 percent, good enough to tie former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and business executive Carly Fiorina for tenth place.

Everybody else in the dog pile garnered less than two percent or less, including Ohio Gov. John  Kasich (2 percent), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who got – ouch – 1 percent, and former New York Gov. George Pataki, who polled at less than 1 percent.

"It's worth noting that Bobby Jindal enjoys more support in Iowa than he does nationally," pollster Patrick Murray. "He is among the top ten candidates in Iowa, but his showing in the national polls makes it unlikely he will gain entry to the first debate."

FOX News is broadcasting the first GOP televised debate Aug. 6, but is limiting participation to the candidates who are in the top 10 of an average of national polls.

Iowa voters hold an almost universally positive opinion of Walker in the Monmouth survey, with a 73 percent favorable to 9 percent unfavorable rating among likely caucus-goers. This +64-point net positive rating is more than double the +31 he  got in the Long Branch university's national poll last week.

Fewer than 20 percent of likely Iowa caucus voters said they did not know enough about Walker to have an opinion of him, as opposed to about half of Republicans in the national Monmouth survey.

Trump, memorably christened a "short-fingered vulgarian" by Spy Magazine in the 1990s, on Saturday insulted former Vietnam War POW Sen. John McCain as "not a war hero" because he was captured, during an Ames, Ia. Forum. He stood by the remarks against nearly across-the-board condemnation.

Murray said there was no discernable negative reaction from the remarks in the poll, which was in the final stages of interviewing respondents at the time.

Trump had a 47 percent favorable to 35 percent unfavorable rating among Iowa Republcians, for a relatively anemic +8 ratio, though that is better than he has done in other recent polls in the state and nationally.

Christie was viewed favorably by 26 percent, and unfavorably by 51 percent.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 452 Iowa voters who said theyw ere likely to attend the GOP caucuses. They are subject to a possible margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.