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With only 28 days until the Iowa caucuses - and with the New Hampshire primary just five days after that - there is one group of people competing as frenetically as the rival candidates: the political pollsters.

Polls are landing in email boxes and onto newspaper front pages on a daily basis, with candidates up, down, holding steady, losing ground, surging, a roller coaster of statistics that are often rendered meaningless when the voters actually have their say.

Except, these polls are still impossible to ignore (or, as one commentator once described them, they have become the crack cocaine of political journalism).

There are several new polls out today, but there are two that really add to the sense that the Democratic race is becoming truly competitive - and that the Republican race is more wildly unpredictable than ever.

An Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Hillary Clinton's once formidable lead in New Hampshire over Barack Obama has narrowed to just six points, at 35 to 29. With the two locked in a statistical tie in Iowa, New Hampshire was seen as something of a firewall for Mrs Clinton. Under the headline figure, the good news for her is that New Hampshire voters see her as the most experienced and electible candidate. The bad news is that a majority of voters want a fresh approach to governing - Mr Obama's core message.

(To amplify the fragility of these polls, a Marist survey released yesterday has Mrs Clinton's New Hampshire lead over Mr Obama holding steady, at 37 points to 23.)

The most startling survey was a Rasmussen poll that put Mike Huckabee leading the Republican field NATIONALLY for the first time, three points ahead of Rudy Giuliani. The big story has been Huckabee's surge in Iowa. But a lead nationally? Now that's momentum.