It’s Friday, so you know what that means .. the Presidential Power Hour at 12ET.  The last one of the year before the Iowa caucuses in January.  We’ll lead things off with our guy Jamie Dupree, broadcasting from Iowa after covering the GOP debate last night.  I'll give my analysis of the debate last night and where we stand headed into the Iowa caucuses.

Newt has had an interesting week.  I’ll be curious to see how Iowa responds to his debate performance last night.  Leading up to last night, things looked like they were starting to sour in Iowa for Newt.  But a lot can happen in two weeks.  But if you look at current Gallup polling, Newt still seems to be the front-runner by a large margin.  He currently holds 41% of the support among self-professed conservatives.  Mitt Romney is still getting his share of support.  Try 27% … that’s the percentage of self-professed liberals and moderates who say they support Mitt Romney.  Could this be a good quality to have in a candidate to match up against Barack Obama?

In that same Gallup poll, Mitt Romney claims the top spot among younger voters, 18 to 34.  Ron Paul has 20% with Newt Gingrich closely behind him at 19%.  The youth vote could prove to be key in 2012.  Remember that the millennial generation, 18-29, turned out in record numbers to support Obama by a margin of more than 2-1.  But, his support among this group has faded.  In a poll conducted by Obama’s alma mater, Harvard University, among those who voted for Obama in 2008, less than half believe he will win re-election this time around.  More than half of the respondents (51%) disapprove of the job he is doing.  But tell me if this makes sense … those same voters said that their favorite GOP candidate was Mitt Romney, but when pinned head-to-head against Obama, these millennials still choose Obama over Romney 37% to 26%.

If you want to read all about Obama’s "coalition of the ascendant," I recommend this article: Where Obama Has Slipped.  Note that the only group where Obama has actually seen an increase in popularity is ….. voters 65 or older.