Rasmussen: Huckabee pulls within three points of the front-running Rudy Giulianihttp://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._tracking_poll

If the current round of Huck-a-mania is nothing more than Mike Huckabee’s fifteen minutes of fame, the former Arkansas Governor is certainly making the most of it. Today, in the first full round of national polling completed since last week’s “debate” among Republican Presidential hopefuls, Huckabee has pulled to within three points of the frontrunning Rudy Giuliani. Heading into the debate, Giuliani led Huckabee by twelve.

Not only that, new polling data released today shows that Huckabee has pulled to within a single percentage point of Hillary Clinton in a general election match-up. Huckabee is also a frontrunner in Iowa and essentially tied for second in New Hampshire. Some pundits believe Huckabee’s numbers will surely go down as fast as they’ve gone up while others are beginning to consider the possibility that the bass-guitar playing Governor may become a serious contender for the Republican nomination.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Giuliani with 20% support nationwide while Huckabee attracts 17%. Fred Thompson is at 14%, John McCain at 13% and Mitt Romney at 11%. Ron Paul attracts 7% of Likely Republican Primary voters nationwide and no other Republican candidate reaches 2% (see recent daily numbers). During the past week, three events—a debate, an endorsement, and Huck-a-mania—have created new challenges and uncertainties for the GOP frontrunners.

Rudy Giuliani is still seen as the most electable Republican. McCain, Romney, and Huckabee are essentially tied for second in this category.

Results for the Presidential Tracking Poll are obtained through nightly telephone interviews and reported on a four-day rolling average basis. Today is the first update for which all of the interviews were conducted following Wednesday’s Republican debate.

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Clinton now attracts 37% of the vote while Barack Obama earns 24%. John Edwards remains in third place among the Democratic hopefuls at 15%, Bill Richardson is the top choice for 6%, and no other Democratic candidate tops 3% (see recent daily numbers).

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Democrats believe that Clinton is at least somewhat likely to win the White House if nominated. That’s down from 81% a month ago. Sixty-six percent (66%) believe Obama is at least somewhat likely to win it all and 58% say the same about Edwards.

New polling on general election match-ups released over the weekend shows Obama tied with McCain, in a toss-up with Giuliani, and leading both Thompson and Romney.

Other polling released yesterday shows that just 23% believe the United States is heading in the right direction. Women are more pessimistic than men.

Also, during the month of November, 37.3% of Americans identified themselves as Democrats while 32.6% considered themselves Republicans. Those figures are virtually unchanged from October, are a bit better for the GOP than November 2006, but represent a significant decline in the number of Republicans since President Bush’s re-election.

See Rasmussen Reports general election match-ups and other key stats for all Republican and Democratic candidates.

The Rasmussen Reports Election 2008 Presidential Tracking Poll is updated daily. Today is the first day of regular weekend updates.

Daily tracking results are from survey interviews conducted over four days ending last night. Each update includes approximately 750 Likely Democratic Primary Voters and 600 Likely Republican Primary Voters. Margin of sampling error for each is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.