Huckabee still strong with Iowa evangelical voters

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee still has a strong lead with evangelical Republican voters in Iowa that helped give him a surprise 2008 win in the Iowa Caucuses over Mitt Romney, according to a poll conducted by Neighborhood Research:

With Baptists, Huckabee leads Romney 39-16 with 10 for Palin and 10 for Gingrich. Among Dutch Reformed voters, Huckabee leads Palin 50-13 with 8 for Romney. Huckabee leads Palin 34-14 with non-Baptist, non-Reformed evangelicals with 7 for Romney and Gingrich and 5 for Pawlenty. With Baptists, Huckabee leads Romney 39-16 with 10 for Palin and 10 for Gingrich.

The poll only counted those who attended services weekly into its subtotals broken down by religion, or a total of 65 percent of the voters. (The original poll gave Huckabee a 24-19 lead over Mitt Romney, with Palin at 11 percent and Newt Gingrich at 8 percent.)

Overall, evangelicals were 35 percent of those who attended services weekly, while mainline protestants were 23 percent, Lutherans 20 percent, and Catholics 19 percent. Catholics favored Romney over Huckabee by a 25-16 percent margin, while Lutherans split at 19 percent for Romney, Huckabee and Palin.

Huckabee is still uncertain about entering the presidential race — he has said that if he does run, the announcement will come this summer. If so, in Iowa, he will have a base of evangelical voters that know him and support him already.