Morning polls: Clinton holds on to shrinking leads in Iowa, New Hampshire

• Clinton first in what is essentially a tied race

Rasmussen just came out with a new poll from Iowa, and it has the three major candidates within 3 points of one another! Any way you turn the numbers, it is a complete toss-up.

• Hillary Clinton is at 27%, followed by Barack Obama at 25% and John Edwards at 24%. Richardson also gets in the double-digits at 10%, with Biden at 4%.
But in what is a very worrisome statistic for Clinton and a great one for Edwards, he is the top second choice of Iowa Democrats (28%). Obama is next at 18%, Clinton at 16% and Richardson at 15%. We know how important these numbers are in Iowa since many voters will have to caucus for a second choice.
• Rasmussen proposes many combinations that all go to see that the race could go for any of these 3 candidates: Among voters who are definitely supporting their candidate, Clinton holds at 27%, Obama at 25% while Edwards is a bit weaker at 22%; Edwards takes the lead among those who have caucused before, and Obama is slightly ahead among those who are certain they will go to vote on January 3rd.

Two weeks ago, Rasmussen's Iowa poll had Clinton ahead with 29% followed by Edwards's 25% and Obama's 24%. That result was a drop from Clinton's 33-22 lead in the October survey. Clearly, the Iowa race has tightened considerably in the past few weeks. The one reason why Clinton must be happy that she held on to a slight lead here is that this will prevent the narrative of Clinton's collapse of continuing to spread as it started to after last week's Washington Post poll.

• Clinton, Romney ahead in New Hampshire

A new Suffolk University poll was just released today and it has Clinton and Romney ahead in double-digits:

• Among Democrats, Clinton gets 34% of the vote, ahead of Obama's 22%. The last Suffolk poll had Clinton up 18%, but it was taken in June, so it is useless to use this to judge trendlines.
• Among Republicans, Romney is ahead significantly, 34% to 20% for Rudy Giuliani. McCain is weaker than usual at 13%, with Ron Paul at 8% and Huckabee at 7%. Fred Thompson managed to beat his record of New Hampshire... dropping down at 2%!

Needless to say that Thompson would be out of the race overnight if he gets 2% on January 8th! Romney should be satisfied to see he is holding to such a big lead with a little more than a month to go before voting; is 14% a big enough edge for him to stay on top it if he loses Iowa? His one advantage is that his loss would mean a Huckabee victory, and thus even if Romney goes down it is unclear whether Giuliani would get any boost and overtake him -- so it will not be the same scenario as Kerry's surge in 2004.

As for Democrats, this is in the smaller end of the Clinton leads, and she used to be up by much more in New Hampshire. The same question holds for her that I just asked for Romney: Is a double-digit lead large enough for her to come out with a win here even if she loses in Iowa?

• Young still in danger in Alaska

However unlikely it appeared a few months ago that Alaska's at large seat would become a top battleground, it appears that Don Young's involvement in the corruption scandal that is rocking the state is putting him in big trouble in next year's election. A new poll out today has him trailing his two Democratic challengers: 45% to 37% against Diana Benson, and 50% to 35% against Ethan Berkowitz.

This is an internal poll conducted for Diane Benson's campaign -- and it is interesting that Benson, the 2006 nominee for the seat, chose to release it given that she runs a bit weaker than Berkowitz. With most commentators paying more attention to Berkowitz, Benson is trying to show that she is also in a great position to beat Young and she should be given a chance. And as always with internal polls, take them with a great of salt, as they are not necessarily indicative of what independent polls might find. But this is the second poll that has Young trailing, so we have to look at this seat as a top pick-up opportunity for Democrats.