Romney gains in polls due to the Iowa straw poll

This chart from RealClearPolitics shows poll averages from February of this year. The arrow shows the gain for Mitt Romney in the last ten days since the Iowa straw poll.

All the talk of a "hollow victory" and "underperforming" is nonsense. I've argued before that Romney's victory and the Huckster's second-place finish is very meaningful. The people who follow politics daily are underwhelmed by an expected victory in a non-event, but they are very different from the Republican primary voter who pays very, very little attention to things except for an occasional news item or newspaper article. And reaching these voters is the key to moving up in the polls, which is a big way the talking heads and donors gauge candidate strength.