Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich suffered a big drop in support in Iowa with Ron Paul taking the lead weeks before a key caucus in the state, according to a Democratic polling firm.
The Public Policy Polling telephone survey of 597 likely Republican caucus voters in Iowa found Mr Paul, a congressman from Texas, leading with 23 per cent of the vote, followed by 20 per cent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and 14 per cent for Mr Gingrich.
"Newt Gingrich's campaign is rapidly imploding and Mr Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row," the polling firm, which is affiliated with the Democratic Party, said in a statement.
Mr Gingrich's share of the vote in the past two weeks has gone from 27 per cent to 22 per cent to 14 per cent, in the latest poll, taken December 16th to December 18th, with a margin of error for the survey of plus or minus four points, it said.
Mr Gingrich's personal favourability numbers also fell during the past fortnight from plus 31 to plus 12 to a minus 1 now among Iowa voters polled ahead of the Iowa caucus on January 3rd, the polling firm said.
Among the other candidates in the race to oppose president Barack Obama's 2012 re-election bid, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry each received 10 per cent of the votes, while 4 per cent went for Jon Huntsman, and 2 per cent for Gary Johnson, it said.
The libertarian-leaning Paul's unusual rise to the top of a poll comes amid a strong campaign in Iowa, the pollsters said. But they said his popularity depended heavily on the youth vote and he trailed both Mr Romney and Mr Gingrich among older voters.
Mr Gingrich reached the top of the Republican field last month as the favoured conservative alternative to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. But his front-runner status has prompted attacks from rivals that he is an unreliable conservative and influence peddler, particularly over fat fees he earned from Freddie Mac, a mortgage giant tied to the economic recession.
Reuters