Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the fourth GOP Presidential candidate to lead a national poll over the last three months, which naturally causes skepticism about how long the Newt surge can last. But here’s something Gingrich has done that other GOP flavors of the month haven’t: he’s nearly matched former Mass Gov. Mitt Romney in a poll of the New Hampshire GOP primary.
Romney has long enjoyed a huge lead in the state, which abuts the commonwealth he used to govern in Massachusetts. He’s essentially been hovering over forty percent in a crowded GOP field, which showed how solid his support was in the state. But apparently the idea of Gingrich is causing a few Republicans to change their minds, according to a new survey from GOP pollster Magellan Strategies conducted for the New Hampshire Journal.
Romney clings to a small two point lead in the new survey, coming in at the top with 29 percent of the Republican electorate. Gingrich is second with 27 percent, making it a statistical tie for the lead, with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) third at 16 and businessman Herman Cain fourth with ten.
One of the most unbelievable shifts for Gingrich is his favorability rating among New Hampshire Republicans. In August, Magellan’s polling showed that Gingrich was one of the most disliked candidates among the party faithful, with only 29 percent having a favorable view of him versus 60 percent with a negative one. That perception has completely flipped three months later. The former Speaker is now liked by 59 percent of the New Hampshire GOPers polled, versus only 31 percent who retain the negative perspective.
The survey asked the whole Republican sample why they think that Gingrich is moving up in the polls, and a near majority selected his “depth and knowledge of the issues,” as the key reason. That far outpaced his debate performances and his past experience as Speaker, which both came in at ten percent.
The Journal, however, urged caution on a Gingrich breakout. Yes, he’s doing well, but they also said the new results point more to a two man race, not a replacement of Romney.
A close look at the data shows Gingrich is actually leading Romney among certain important subgroups of the electorate. Among self-identified conservative voters, Gingrich beats Romney 34%-27%. Among self-identified tea party voters, he leads Romney 38%-21%.However, Romney has a wide lead over Gingrich among undeclared voters, who give the former Massachusetts Governor 29% over Paul’s 19% and Gingrich’s 18%. There is also a significant gender gap for both Romney and Gingrich. Romney beats Gingrich 33%-22% among women while Gingrich defeats Romney 32%-24% among men.
The tightening of the race should not be understood as a rejection of Romney, however. He remains the most popular candidate in the field with a public image that is 60% favorable and 32% unfavorable. Gingrich is close with 59% saying they have a favorable view of him while 31% have an unfavorable view. Romney is also considered to have a political organization in New Hampshire that is vastly superior to the other candidates.
The Magellan poll used 746 automated interviews with New Hampshire Republicans conducted November 15th and 16th. It has a sampling error of 3.59 percent.
Kyle Leighton
Kyle Leighton is a News Writer at TPM. He graduated from Beloit College (WI) and began working in politics before getting an M.A. in magazine journalism from New York University, where he interned at TPM and the website of The New Yorker.
A party that doesn't value expertise but values only those who share their own prejudices is a party doomed to failure.
We all need to work together to make America a functional and competitive and clean and amazing place. We should support the american President and the american worker no matter who they may be or will become. You and I may die, but all together we are in this world for the long haul.
please! please let the unethical scoundrel Gingrich with his multi wives and thrown out of the Houses on ethics charges be the GOP nominee!! please!!!!!!!!
A political party that nominates a salamander as its Presidential candidate is a party which has hopelessly
lost its way.
Mitt better change his position NOW on something, anything, to pander to some group to make sure he wins New Hampshire.
The only way Newt could poll at 59% favorable is in a Republicans-only survey. He's in the 30s nationally.
I read yesterday that Newt Gingrich (like Herman Cain) has virtually no team, no staff to speak of, no organization and no boots on the ground in New Hampshire or Iowa. He has not organized, his NH staff quit a month or more ago, notwithstanding 2 are returning to the fold since he has surged up in the polls. But with less than 50 days before the NH primary to reassemble a campaign staff, attract enough volunteers to get a ground game up and running and around 40 days to pull it together for the Iowa caucus and that is without subtracting the holidays it is pretty obvious Gingrich is not a serious candidate.
While Romney has the best organized ground game in New Hampshire, Rick Perry has the best in South Carolina and Ron Paul in Iowa neither Cain nor Gingrich even bothered to assemble much of a ground game, if any at all in the primary states.
They are not campaigning, Gingrich & Cain are on their book tours pretending to be serious candidates. That alone ought to disqualify them. Unfortunately the T-Partiers and ultra-right wing conservatives don't know or don't care. For those who do know It seems as far as they are concerned anybody but Romney will do.
This won't last.
Newt Gingrich is one of the most unlikable Republicans of the last 20 years. All those voters who want to have a beer with their candidates will be disappointed. Not only will they eventually decide they do not want to have a beer with Newt - Newt doesn't want to have a beer with them either - and he can't disguise the fact.
njblais57 Tell Santorum not to quit yet. The party is not over until it is over.
Excellent point. Most Republican politicians are able to disguise the fact that they really don't want to have anything to do with their constituents, but Newt just oozes contempt. njblais57
"Newt just oozes contempt."
You could have stopped with "Newt just oozes."
It's always seemed to me that Newt basically doesn't like people, especially voters. This could work against him in a "retail politics" state like NH. Once they actually meet him, the Republican voters may just say, "What an asshole!" After which they'll sigh heavily and go back to "supporting" Romney, muttering to themselves.
NEWSFLASH: The entire GOP field of 2012 presidential candidates equally suck.
mjtanner And once again Obama's opponents unravel. He may be one of the luckiest politicians ever.
catx10mjtanner To some extent he made his own luck by the way he has responded to the right wingers over the past three years. He stays raveled, emphasizing the unraveling of his opponents.
The Twilight Zone. http://politics-vfuh.blogspot.com/
Looks like Freddie Mac's "sleeper agent" plan is working.
For now. The light of day is on Newt now. s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s....
I expect Michelle Bachmann to be the eventual nominee. She is smart, beautiful, and gaffe-free so far. Her bold thinking and can-do attitude is exactly what America needs in its time of crisis.
Sailor Boy, is that you? We've missed you... but where's the alliteration? Mr.Banana Hammock
Mr.Banana Hammock With the way the GOP voters cycle threw their canidates it maybe her turn to be Flavor again when the voting starts.
rjlMr.Banana Hammock But the cycles here remind me of the flow when I flush.
Mr.Banana Hammock Yes, that's it, the can do attitude! I knew there was something special about Michelle but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Marcus certainly hasn't put his finger on it.
Mr.Banana Hammock And we would have a First Lady to die for.
If Romney can't win NH, he is done.
yank3525 Should we bring a fork and cook him over an open fire?
...with a little hollandaise sauce and fresh ground pepper. hora_del_cafe yank3525
bluestatedon hora_del_cafe yank3525
And a nice Chianti
hora_del_cafeyank3525 Rommeny is a steak that flips itself.
yank3525 Yeah, but then somebody else would have to win and the republican Party hasn't quite resolved that particular conundrum.
Chesire It seems they are getting behind Newt now, he is peaking at the right time. If Newt doesn't gut his head off, which is very likely and he wins Iowa, which is not looking more and more like a possibility, he may be able to carry that momentum into NH. If Mitt doesn't place well in Iowa, and outfights wins NH, he is cooked, done etc.
yank3525Chesire Newt is peaking too early. Each GOP candidate gets only one month--Michele in August, Perry in September, Cain in October, and now Newt in November. December might be Huntsman, and by the first votes in January, we could be down to Santorum. (Sorry, Paul fans, but he will never rise above 20% no matter what.)
Chesireyank3525 Yes, they solve it every week.
Conundrum? Isn't that connected to the duodenum? Chesire yank3525
Where's David Kurtz and why isn't he doing a little patch up work for his boy MItt?
Wow. Just wow. I guess to be a Republican front-runner, you have to be a serial sexual harasser, a serial cheater and serial flip-flopper.
hora_del_cafe So you're trying to imply that General Mills has bought the election?
Chesirehora_del_cafe Or if not, they should at least offer to sponsor it
Chesire Imply? Signed, sealed and delivered... :-)
hora_del_cafe Just wait until the dairy council gets wind of this!
Chesire Wonder what the Burrito Council would do
hora_del_cafe Chili today, hot tamale.
Mickey Bitsko Carne asada taco
I wonder if the story about top aides from Mitt's MA administration, including his Lt Gov, bought their hard drives when he left office and wiped them clean, plus wiped the system servers of all emails, will have any legs and effect his support. What did he want to hide? If they wanted to provide clean drives for the incoming Patrick administration, all they had to do was have IT deal with it, not systematically do it themselves. Remind you, the people who did this are not the kind to take staplers and hole punches from their offices when they leave. The Lt Gov is a millionaire many times over.
acf_ma The hard drives aspect probably doesn't have any legs, since they can plausibly say the drives were wiped, and that they always used the server for files anyway. It seems more problematic -- and subject to soundbites -- that they wiped out *all* email for the entire four (4) years of the administration, which included major initiatives like "RomneyCare" and the Big Dig. Especially since, just as this is hitting the media, Romney is *at the same time* attacking the Obama Administration for being secretive and insufficiently transparent.
DQKennardacf_ma I don't think the base will care since this is a story about technology and, well, facts. Plus, they don't like Romney anyway. But I expect the Obama team is paying attention.
Bruce Handy Politico is in the bag for Romney.
@Doremus Jessup 2.0 @Bruce Handy Think about that statement for a moment...just stopp and...think...
ANYBODY in the bag for Romney.
I mean...wow!
Really though, isn't he really one of those gas bag CO2 aliens, in an oversized human suit, from Dr. Who?
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