Romney's numbers rose 4% overnight in the Rasmussen national polling among Republicans, to 19%, a couple of ticks behind Mike Huckabee at 21%.
That had to be the impact of Sunday night's impressive performance in the debate, and adds to the argument below that New Hampshire can only retire John McCain, not Mitt Romney.
The numbers: Huckabee 21% ( 1)
Romney 19% ( 4)
McCain 18% (-1)
Giuliani 13% (-4)
Thompson 11% (no change)
Methodology:
Daily tracking results are collected via nightly telephone surveys and reported on a four-day rolling average basis. The next update is scheduled for Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. Each update includes approximately 750 Likely Democratic Primary Voters and 600 Likely Republican Primary Voters. Margin of sampling error for each is /- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
The use of a four day rolling average means that the Romney swing yesterday was large. Maybe not enough to gain a win in New hampshire, but a sign of the course of the future race.