Eye-popping numbers, though frankly it’s far too early for any of this to matter and PPP is a shot in the dark when it comes to polls like this.

Nevertheless – 25 percent? In a field this big?

PPP’s newest national Republican poll finds a clear leader in the race for the first time: Scott Walker is at 25% to 18% for Ben Carson, 17% for Jeb Bush, and 10% for Mike Huckabee. Rounding out the field of contenders are Chris Christie and Ted Cruz at 5%, Rand Paul at 4%, and Rick Perry and Marco Rubio at 3%.

Walker has more than doubled his support since his 11% standing on our January national poll, and Carson has moved up 3 points.  Bush, Huckabee, Paul, and Perry have largely stayed in place while Cruz has dropped 4 points and Christie has dropped 2 points.

Walker is climbing fast in the polling because of his appeal to the most conservative elements of the Republican electorate. Among ‘very conservative’ voters he leads with 37% to 19% for Carson, 12% for Bush, and 11% for Huckabee. Bush has a similarly large lead over Walker with moderates at 34/12…the problem for Bush though is that there are two times more GOP primary voters who identify as ‘very conservative’ than there are ones who identify as moderates.

Bush is really struggling with conservative voters. Among ‘very conservative’ voters on this poll, just 37% rate Bush favorably to 43% with an unfavorable opinion. By comparison Carson is at 73/2, Walker at 68/3, and Cruz at 68/8 with those folks.

You can really see the divide between Walker and Bush’s support on issues like global warming and evolution. Among primary voters who believe in global warming 37% support Bush to only 2% who favor Walker. The problem for him is that only 25% of GOP voters say they do believe in global warming- and among the 66% who don’t Walker has the 35/10 advantage over Bush. It’s a similar story on evolution. Among voters who believe in evolution Walker and Bush run pretty much even at 24/23. But that’s just 37% of primary voters, and with the other 49% of them who don’t believe in it Walker has a substantial advantage over Bush at 28/13.

At the link, there are some interesting numbers – like George W. Bush holding a 74/21 approval rating, which ought to translate into more support for his brother but doesn’t. And Chris Christie is at 28/45, which should tell you that he’s damaged goods and not viable in this race.

Carson is stealing votes from Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, says the survey, and he has an 80 percent approval rating among self-described Tea Party supporters. Couple that with rumors of Carson raising scads of money out on the fundraising circuit and he might be a little bit more viable non-politician candidate than Herman Cain was in 2012.

What PPP didn’t do was match the GOP candidates against Hillary Clinton, but it was a poll of Republican primary voters anyway.