Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is surging nationally in the Republican presidential race as he runs better than 3-to-1 ahead of his nearest competitor among religious conservatives.

A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll shows that Huckabee, with 17 percent support, trails only longtime front-runner Rudy Giuliani, with 23 percent. Huckabee has been running strong in the first voting state of Iowa, though well behind the leading candidates in national surveys. In this latest poll, he forges ahead of Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

Among Democrats, front-runner Hillary Clinton maintains a large lead over her closest competitor, Barack Obama, and is seen by her party's voters as the candidate most likely to beat a Republican. That may change if Obama wins in Iowa, where surveys show him running even or slightly ahead in the Jan. 3 caucuses. The new poll shows Obama doing better than Clinton in theoretical matchups against leading Republicans.

Huckabee, 52, moves from fifth place, with 7 percent, among Republican candidates in an October Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll, helped by strong debate performances in recent months and evangelicals rallying around the ordained Baptist minister.

``Huckabee is no longer a second-tier candidate,'' says Susan Pinkus, the LA Times polling director.

`Pragmatism'

Giuliani, 63, the former mayor of New York, had 32 percent backing in the last survey. While that support slips in this poll, he still wins when voters are asked who has the best chance of beating a Democrat next year, with 38 percent. Huckabee gets 6 percent. ``That's pragmatism setting in,'' Pinkus says.

Huckabee, who opposes abortion and gay marriage, captures the largest share of self-described religious voters in this survey, with 28 percent. Almost three in 10 Republican voters surveyed in the Nov. 30-Dec. 3 poll say Giuliani's support for abortion rights makes them less likely to vote for him.

Among religious voters, Giuliani and Romney each have 9 percent support, Thompson gets 8 percent and McCain 6 percent.

Like other respondents, John Bailey, a retired Navy mechanic in Superior, Wisconsin, praises what he sees as Huckabee's straightforward approach. ``He doesn't try to cover up anything,'' says Bailey, 70.

`A Better Country'

People drawn to Huckabee may not have in-depth knowledge of his positions. Huckabee is the top choice of Republicans who say immigration is their most important issue, yet his positions are at odds with the opinions expressed by respondents. For instance, just 8 percent of Republicans say children of illegal immigrants should be able to qualify for in-state college tuition discounts. As governor, Huckabee supported allowing those children to apply for academic scholarships.

``We are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did,'' Huckabee said in a Nov. 28 Republican debate in Florida after being criticized by Romney on the issue.

Scott Walker, 41, a contractor in Sharpsburg, Georgia, says he wasn't aware of Huckabee's position on the issue and doesn't agree with him. Still, Walker says he plans to support Huckabee because he backs the so-called fair tax and because of ``his overall presentation as a candidate.''

The closest competitors to Giuliani and Huckabee in the poll are former Tennessee Senator Thompson, 65, who is backed by 14 percent of Republican voters, and Arizona Senator McCain, 71, who gets 11 percent support. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who has outspent rivals by more than $20 million to move to the top of the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, has 9 percent support nationally.

Mormon Faith

The survey does have some good news for Romney, 60. While some state polls and anecdotal evidence suggest his Mormon faith is a stumbling block, particularly with religious voters, 73 percent of the new poll's respondents say it makes no difference in deciding their vote. Romney plans to speak about faith in a speech tomorrow in Texas.

The poll of 1,245 registered voters has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For the 529 Democratic voters, the margin is 4 points; for the 428 Republicans, it is 5 points.

Republicans are far less settled on their candidates than Democrats, the survey finds. Just under half of Republican voters say they may switch their vote, compared with a little more than a third of Democrats.

Two-Person Show

The Democratic race is turning into a two-person show, with Clinton drawing the support of 45 percent and Obama winning 21 percent. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards has the backing of 11 percent of Democratic voters; no other candidate draws more than 3 percent support in the poll.

In the last poll, Clinton drew 48 percent support, Obama 17 percent and Edwards 13 percent.

Clinton's lead in the race for the nomination has been fueled by the perception that her victory is inevitable. Still, the Iowa caucuses, which are less than a month away, may dramatically change the national rankings. Obama, 46, took the lead over Clinton in one recent poll in Iowa, and a victory in the state's caucuses would give him a boost heading into the New Hampshire primaries five days later.

Clinton, 60, would defeat Romney by 8 points among registered voters and Giuliani by 4 points in theoretical general election matchups, smaller margins than in the October poll. Obama, meanwhile, widens his margins -- beating Romney by 12 points and Giuliani by 5.

Clinton Prepared

Likely Democratic voters say they consider Clinton sufficiently prepared to be president; she tops Obama on that question by a margin of almost 2-to-1. At the same time, Obama is making inroads with independents likely to vote in a Democratic primary, posing a potential problem for Clinton in states such as New Hampshire with high proportions of such voters, Pinkus says. Clinton has 29 percent support among those voters, while Obama has 23 percent.

Huckabee also has an advantage among independent voters such as Carolyn Mashburn, 64, who owns a small grocery store with her husband in Marvell, Arkansas. Mashburn says she didn't pay much attention to Huckabee when he was governor and wasn't very impressed by him as a presidential candidate at first. She changed her mind after seeing him in debates.

``His answers were direct; they seemed honest,'' says Mashburn, a Baptist. ``He spoke for me.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 5, 2007 12:33 EST