Newt Gingrich strong with Iowa evangelicals, Tea Partiers

CBS News ^ | 12-6-2011 | Brian Montopoli

[TitansAFC]

Newt Gingrich's14-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers is grounded in large part in support from Tea Party and evangelical voters, who have a far more positive view of Gingrich than they do Romney, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.

Poll: Gingrich takes double-digit lead over Romney in Iowa

Gingrich wins the support of 34 percent of white evangelicals expected to attend the Republican caucuses on January 3. That's higher than the 31 percent of likely caucus-goers who support Gingrich overall, and far outpaces Romney, who wins the support of just 10 percent of white evangelical caucus-goers. (Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann also have more support from this group than Romney.)

Gingrich's favorable rating among white evangelical likely caucus-goers is 60 percent - compared to just 31 percent for Romney. Only 18 percent hold an unfavorable view of Gingrich, compared to 43 percent for Romney.

White evangelicals see Gingrich as more prepared to be president than Romney (48 percent to 12 percent), better to handle an international crisis (48 percent to 9 percent), better to handle the economy (22 percent to 11 percent) and having the best chance to beat President Obama next November (37 percent to 24 percent). The electability factor has been central to Romney's argument to conservative voters that they should put aside their misgivings and cast their ballots for him.

The findings suggest that the former House speaker is not being negatively judged by social conservative voters for his personal life, which includes three marriages and the acknowledgement of an extramarital affair......

[calcowgirl]

I’m far too cryptic for you to try to talk to me. sorry. (grown)

Yes you are! (groan)

;-)

[SierraWasp]

Yup! (snort!)

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks Sierra Wasp. Hope things are going good for you these days.

[SlightOfTongue]

Also, Cobra, in answer to this twit-of-century's comment "Anybody could be president in this dumb, f**king country".

Yeah, Bill, good point. Look who actually IS president, the biggest mope that ever held office in any capacity!

Anybody can be on TV. You've proved that, Bill, more than once. Doesn't say much for the intelligence of the TV viewing crowd, if ya catch my drift. :>)