Iowa Republicans love Bachmann, we learned this weekend. She's currently polling in second place there, just one percentage point behind Romney, according to the first Des Moines Register 2012 presidential poll, which was released Saturday night. More impressively, the congresswoman beats every other GOP candidate (and some non-candidaets, including Sarah Palin) in favorability by at least seven percentage points. By that measure, we could say she's the most popular GOP presidential candidate in Iowa:
Favorable Unfavorable
Michele Bachmann 65 12
Tim Pawlenty 58 13
Sarah Palin 58 37
Ron Paul 53 32
Mitt Romney 52 38
Herman Cain 47 17
Newt Gingrich 46 43
Chris Christie 45 14
Rudy Giuliani 45 44
Rick Perry 43 8
Paul Ryan 38 13
Rick Santorum 38 17
Jon Huntsman 22 19
Bachmann entered the presidential field as a longshot candidate, over a low murmur of scoffs that she could run a serious campaign and make a significant dent in this race. But after a strong performance in CNN's debate, the first of such televised events to feature nearly the entire field, her prospects appeared more legitimate -- she left an impression that she's a substantial candidate, not just a tea-party sensation. After her performance in the Des Moines Register poll, it appears increasingly likely that Bachmann could leave Iowa as a real threat for the nomination.
Working to her advantage in Iowa is this possibly overlooked facet of her political identity: She can pull support both from evangelical Christians and from tea-party Republicans and independents, two important groups that overlap. GOP political infrastructure is heavy on evangelical influence in Iowa, where conservative Christian groups hold public events and can broker support. Bachmann is an evangelical Christian herself and has taken conservative stances on social issues.
She's also a tea-party favorite, and the tea-party vote could be a factor in Iowa. Sarah Palin was once enormously popular in the state (68 percent favorable among Iowa Republicans in November 2009), and the caucus process could prove a friendly venue for fired-up activists. In her Fox News Sunday interview with Chris Wallace yesterday, Bachmann walked the line between small-government tea-party ideology and social conservatism when asked about New York's gay-marriage vote the day before. "I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And I also believe -- in Minnesota, for instance, this year, the legislature put on the ballot for people to vote in 2012, whether the people want to vote on the definition of marriage as one man, one woman. In New York state, they have a passed the law at the state legislative level. And under the 10th Amendment, the states have the right to set the laws that they want to set."
In 2008, Iowa Republicans surprised the rest of the country by voting for Mike Huckabee as the GOP presidential nominee. After that race, a network of Huckabee supporters remained (supporters that did not like Mitt Romney), and, with Huckabee not running in 2012, Bachmann stands as good a chance as anyone to inherit those backers.