Romney, Bachmann Battle for Lead in Iowa; Pawlenty Lags Behind

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann appear headed for a real dogfight in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus, according to a poll published earlier this evening by the Des Moines Register.

The poll, based on telephone interviews of 400 likely Republican caucus-goers, shows Romney, who plans to skip the Ames Straw Poll later this summer, narrowly leading with 23 percent to Bachmann’s 22 percent.

Bachmann, 55, will officially announce her candidacy in Waterloo, Iowa, on Monday morning.

Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, placed third with 10 percent. Former Speaker of the House New Gingrich and Texas congressman Ron Paul tied for fourth with 7 percent each, followed by former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who was favored by only 6 percent of those surveyed.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who hopes for a strong showing among Christian evangelicals who flocked to the state’s 2008 caucus, received 4 percent while former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who announced his candidacy on Tuesday, was favored by 2 percent of likely caucus participants.

The poll results should be particularly disturbing to Pawlenty, who has already invested heavily in Iowa.  The former governor of Minnesota not only boasts a highly-regarded campaign staff in Iowa, but was the first major candidate to begin airing television commercials there. Moreover, Pawlenty has personally invested a great deal of time in the neighboring Hawkeye State, spending at least 26 days campaigning in the state going back to the fall of 2009.

Pawlenty’s campaign unveiled its team of advisers in Iowa, an impressive group headed by former state party chairman Chuck Larson, Jr., a former ambassador to Latvia, some five weeks ago.

Pawlenty’s Iowa team also includes former RNC operative Karen Slifka, Ed Failor, Jr., who previously headed the influential Iowa for Tax Relief organization, and Des Moines political consultant Eric Woolson, a former journalist who managed Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign in Iowa.

Pawlenty, whose candidacy has failed to electrify his party’s conservative base, made his first trip to Iowa as a potential presidential candidate in November 2009 when he was a featured speaker at a “Leadership for Iowa” event — the Iowa GOP’s biggest event that autumn — at the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.

A poor showing in the Ames Straw Poll in August could virtually cripple Pawlenty’s campaign long before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus on February 6.

“If I were the Pawlenty camp, I would be enormously concerned about this poll,” said Jennifer Duffy of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.