The final Des Moines Register poll before the Iowa Caucus has been released and it shows stunning momentum for Rick Santorum. While Mitt Romney leads with 24, with Ron Paul nipping at his heels at 22 — the big news is the momentum for the former Pennsylvania Senator. Santorum had been stuck in single digits for months but now, the wind is at his back.

If Ron Paul were to run a third-party bid for the president, he would critically hemorrhage voters from the GOP nominee and bolster President Obama to reelection, The Washington Post‘s Scott Clement finds in a new poll.

Dem pollster Public Policy Polling has a new poll out showing Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul surging in Iowa, just weeks before the state’s caucuses. The polling firm found Paul leading the pack, with 23% in the Hawkeye State, with Mitt Romney not too far behind at 20%. Newt Gingrich‘s grasp of the state is [...]

Debate fatigue? A recent USA Today/Gallup poll released yesterday shows a whopping 70% of Americans are solidly opposed to the neverending reality show known as the “2012 presidential campaign,” or at least “can’t wait for it to be over.” The desperation for the campaigns to end transcends ideological boundaries, geography, and age, with men being slightly less averse to the whole thing.

New polling results now have a new front-runner edging out Mitt Romney… and it’s none other than Newt Gingrich. Public Policy Polling has Gingrich polling at 28 percent compared to former front-runner Herman Cain‘s 25 percent and 18 percent for Romney, who has consistently been poised as the “candidate to beat” amidst a revolving door of GOP competitors.

On his program Wednesday, Bill O’Reilly took a look at the violence that occurred during Occupy Oakland protesters’ attempt to march on City Hall, adding that the protest had grown increasingly antisemitic (although, in all fairness, he showed a clip of solely one protester making disparaging remarks about Jewish people). O’Reilly then shared the results of a new CBS / New York Times poll showing that 43 percent of Americans support the Occupy movement, with 27 percent showing disagreement, and 30 percent reporting that they were unsure about it.

O’Reilly was visibly upset, however, with another poll showing that 66 percent of Americans feel money and wealth are not “distributed fairly” in the United States.

Results of a new Field Poll survey have just been released, and it would appear that things aren’t coming up entirely rosy for Barack Obama, particularly, as the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein pointed out on Morning Joe today, among those with whom the President should hypothetically be enjoying the greatest popularity.

The latest Iowa poll–from Public Policy Polling, out today–has some conversation-starting results: behind leader Mitt Romney (in first place with 21 percent), Iowa voters are surging to Sarah Palin and Herman Cain (tied for second with 15 percent).

CNN has just released the results of its latest CNN/WMUR-TV poll of New Hampshire voters ahead of the state’s First in the Nation presidential primary, and among Republicans, Mitt Romney‘s far and away the favorite with 32 percent. No opinion was second, with 17 percent, followed by Ron Paul (9%), Newt Gingrich (6%) and Rudy Giuliani (6%). Tim Pawlenty, who got into the race today, polled at four percent, as did Mitch Daniels, who said he would not run.

The same poll that showed “undecided” narrowly beating Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination also showed voters are just as divided on political reporters. When asked by pollsters at Suffolk University which political reporter “you trust the most,” respondents (1,070 of them were polled) said “don’t know” (21%) followed by “none” (15%). So take that, Chuck Todd and Jake Tapper (neither of whom was among the names read to respondents in the poll) and John King (0%) and Christiane Amanpour (1%) who were.

A new Gallup poll reveals that voters who identify as more conservative, do not have college degrees and who make $24,000 or less annually are more likely to support former Alaska governor Sarah Palin over Mitt Romney for president in 2012. Romney, on the other hand, has evidently fared better with voters who describe themselves as “liberals to moderate”, have received degrees of higher learning and who make at least $90,000 a year.

The split drives home the challenges facing any would-be GOP candidate: Catering to the party’s base without completely alienating those on the fence, and appealing to voters across a wide spectrum.

A new CBS News poll has distressing news for President Obama as he begins his campaign for re-election: fully 70 percent of Americans believe the country is on the “wrong track”–a figure that’s jumped twenty percentage points since Obama took office in 2009. “There is a clear message from this poll: people are just sick of Washington and Washington politicians,” said CBS News political correspondent Jan Crawford on CBS’ Early Show Friday morning. “Americans are saying things are getting worse, not better.”

A CBS News survey shows half of Americans approve of how President Obama is handling the situation in Libya, with just 29 percent saying they disapprove. Twenty-one percent said they did not have an opinion. CBS pollsters say the solid support includes an unusually strong showing from Republicans:

The New York Post reports this morning CNN’s Eliot Spitzer–who was part of the network’s coverage of the State of the Union Tuesday night–suggested a CNN poll on reaction to President Obama‘s speech was “totally misleading and should not be aired.”

The Post, citing unnamed sources, suggests an internal email from CNN standards and practices chief Rick Davis, which offered guidance on reporting the results of the poll, set Spitzer off:

The lame duck Congress is a hit with Americans. An ABC News/Yahoo! News poll finds 77 percent of Americans approved of the “flurry of legislation” pushed through Congress last month, saying it was good for President Obama and Congress to work together.

The poll–out this morning–finds approval across party lines, with 91 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans approving of the rush of legislation on tax cuts, unemployment benefits, gays in the military, the START treaty and aid to 9/11 responders:

According to the latest Gallup Daily tracking report, President Obama‘s recent string of legislative accomplishments has paid dividends by helping to restore his job approval rating to 50%. Gallup says his job approval has not been this high since near the end of May and the beginning of June. Before Obama supporters get too excited though, there are some interesting caveats.

News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch‘s planned takeover of broadcaster BSkyB got panned in a new poll, with 63 percent of the British public saying there should be an independent investigation into the purchase, according to a report today in the Daily Mail.

News Corp, parent company to Fox News Channel, is attempting to take over the remaining 61 percent of BSkyB shares the company does not already own–a purchase that has led to claims Murdoch will have too much power over media:

CNBC’s Larry Kudlow took a look at the latest poll from The Wall Street Journal and NBC News and found a huge red warning flag for assumed 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney

Kudlow says Romney’s on the wrong side of the tax cut deal struck by Republicans and President Obama, and “I’m not letting him off the hook.”

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee wants you to know that it’s not just Sarah Palin who believes President Obama is beatable. On ABC’s The View, Barbara Walters, whose “can you beat Barack Obama” question to Palin got so much buzz put the same question to Huckabee: “I wouldn’t run if I didn’t think I could,” Huckabee said. “Obviously you don’t run in a race thinking, ‘boy I’d love to go and lose, that’d be a lot of fun.’”

Huckabee says Republicans shouldn’t start measuring the proverbial drapes in the Oval Office just yet–POTUS will not be a pushover in 2012:

The latest survey conducted by Quinnipiac University’s Polling Institute has found that for the first time, a majority of respondents believe the U.S. should not be involved in Afghanistan. 50 percent of the American voters polled are opposed to the war, while 44 percent answered that the U.S. is “doing the right thing” in Afghanistan.

In a controversy that is shaking the Twitterverse, Indonesian information minister Tifatul Sembiring claims that he was forced into shaking hands with First Lady Michelle Obama. Responding to taunts on Twitter (Twaunts?) that he violated his code of avoiding contact with women to whom he is not related, Sembiring told his followers “”I tried to prevent (being touched) with my hands but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me (so) we touched.”

Luckily, the Associated Press caught the First Lady’s salutory siege on video. Did Sembiring try to fend off the greeting, or is this just so much hand jive? (h/t Alan Colmes)

Bill O’Reilly is the most positive figure in political media, according to a recent Politico/George Washington University poll. If you thought this news nugget slipped by O’Reilly when it was released on Monday, you’d be wrong: he was just waiting for Glenn Beck to stop by before gloating.

Happy Tuesday after Labor Day, or what is now known as the official start of the midterm election season (to be differentiated by the months leading up to today by….pretty much nothing but a change in temperature). Nevertheless, a new ABC/WaPo poll out today will likely set the tone for much of the coverage over the next few weeks, and it doesn’t look pretty for the Dems, or President Obama for that matter.

Well, I guess the residual Lethal Weapon love is stronger than anyone would guess. Perhaps more surprising than the news that Mel Gibson is a bit of a crazy person is the news that most Americans really don’t care. Despite numerous tapes featuring F-words, C-words, N-words, and a couple Q-words, a poll by CBS and Vanity Fair has shown that the scandal will have no effect on whether or not 76% of Americans will see future Mel Gibson movies.

A recent Pew poll, released today, asked Americans ‘What is Obama’s religion?’ Maybe the better question is why does President Obama’s religion matter at all. Of course, essentially the question people are being asked is whether Obama is a Muslim, and by extension somehow either anti-American or un-American (in the very literal sense where the Birther’s are concerned).