Newt leads nationally but what does it matter? (Newt-35, Mitt-22, Paul-11, Bachmann-7, Perry-4)

PPP ^ | 12/20/2011 | PPP

[TBBT]

It's been a bad week for Newt Gingrich in our early state Republican polling, but we still find him with a good sized lead nationally. He's at 35% to 22% for Mitt Romney, 11% for Ron Paul, 7% for Michele Bachmann, 6% for Rick Perry, 4% for Rick Santorum, 3% for Jon Huntsman, and 1% for Gary Johnson.

On the surface that's good news for Gingrich but looking under the hood it's more bad news to some extent. We haven't done a national poll in 5 weeks, too long ago to make a good comparison, but on 6 state polls we've conducted since Thanksgiving in Florida, Montana, North Carolina, Colorado, Virginia, and New Mexico Newt has always had a lead of at least 19 points over Romney with the average of those polls coming out to a 27 point advantage at 42-15. His present national lead represents some serious shrinkage from that. He's also seen a 13 point decline in his net favorability from our last national poll, going from +45 (68/23) to +32 (60/28).

The most interesting finding in this national poll might be that Romney's net favorability has improved 15 points in the last month from just +9 (48/39) to now +24 (55/31). Republican voters are starting to warm up to him in a way that could pave his path to the nomination. Beyond that Romney is clearly next in line to take the national lead if Gingrich continues to falter.

Not only is he 11 points clear of Paul, his closest competitor, but he's the 2nd choice of 35% of Gingrich voters compared to 16% for Bachmann, 11% for Perry and Santorum, and only 6% for Paul. If Newt's people keep jumping ship they're likely to end up with Romney.

[Wallace T.]

If you ignore Romney and Paul, as their support is largely outside the conservative community, it is evident that after Perry and Cain crashed, Gingrich has become the conservative leader. Provided that Gingrich does not shoot himself in the foot, it is likely Perry, Santorum, Huntsman, and Bachmann will drop out before January 31st. Their supporters are almost one fifth of the electorate. While the Huntsman support will go to Romney, the rest will likely go to Gingrich. As Santorum and Bachmann are hard core social conservatives, a fraction of their supporters will likely sit the primaries out, as Gingrich, Romney, and Paul are not strong social conservatives. It would be reasonable to estimate that 75% of the support for the dropouts will go to Gingrich. That will push Gingrich's support to the 40-45% range going into the big state primaries. Assuming Paul will be a weak third or lower in South Carolina and Florida, the softer supporters of the libertarian will fade away and he will be back into the single digits. With a Paul fadeout, Gingrich may go from a plurality to a majority. At that point, with a few victories under his belt, Romney may decide to strike his tent, perhaps settling for a vice presidential position or secretary of state, as Hillary did four years ago.

[chris37]

I don’t have any doubt that polls are being used as mind control, they always have been.

I do know this. I have a bunch of conservatives family members and close friends. All of them were Cain supporters, none of them are Newt supporters, including myself.

Anecdotal I know, but it is what it is.