Huckabee and Obama move ahead in Iowa polling (while Paul continues to gain on the others)

Recent polling by The Des Moines Register shows Huckabee surging ahead of Romney in Iowa and Obama taking a narrow lead over Clinton. (The link includes a really neat graphic-- where you can click on each party name and see survey results in a bar chart from May, October, and November.)

Thomas Beaumont reports that Huckabee was down 29-12 to Romney in October, but is now ahead 29-24. Giuliani was a distant third at 13%. From there, Paul, Thompson, Tancredo and McCain are virtually tied-- with 6-9%. Of these, Paul's popularity has increased the most-- from less than 1% in May to 7% in November-- while Thompson and McCain have dropped considerably.

For the Democrats, a (narrow) lead has moved from Edwards in May to Clinton in October to Obama in November. In each of the three surveys, all three candidates had between 21-29%-- a very tight race.

This has notable parallels to the results of recent polling in South Carolina-- with Paul and especially Huckabee picking up pace. One wonders if Huckabee might be peaking a bit too soon. If expectations are high enough for Huckabee, then a victory in Iowa might be taken for granted. (Moreover, Huckabee's emergence has led to a spate of critical comments about his candidacy.) Meanwhile, lowered expectations for Romney might help him recover from a loss in the first contest.