National Poll: Gingrich Opens Nine Point Lead Over Romney
If this keeps up, Mitt Romney will no longer be the one called “front-runner” since it will be greatly outdated. Former House Speaker has now opened a nine point lead over Romney in a national poll:
Newt Gingrich has opened a sizable lead over Mitt Romney in the first national poll taken since the former Speaker of the House earned the key endorsement of the New Hampshire Union-Leader, showing Gingrich with a nine-percentage point lead over the former Massachusetts governor.
The poll, conducted by Majority Opinion Research Sunday night, showed Gingrich leading the Republican field with 32 percent of support. Romney earned 23 percent, while Herman Cain rounded out the top three with 14 percent of the vote. Ron Paul led the remainder of the field with 6 percent.
If this is the new trend, Gingrich is the front runner. It’s also impressive when you consider where he is making his gains:
Gingrich’s lead has opened up as the former Speaker has rallied both older voters and Independents. 39 percent of those 65 and older support Gingrich, versus 28 percent for Romney, while those in the 45-64 year old age range back the speaker by a 37 to 19 percent margin. Those figures would tend to support the emerging theme that conservatives are rallying behind Gingrich as their preferred alternative. Gingrich and Romney are virtually tied among voters 18-44, who are more likely to hold liberal views.
But Gingrich is also rallying Independents, garnering 32 percent of likely voters who do not affiliate with a party. Among Independents, Romney actually trails Ron Paul, who pulls 17 percent of the vote to Romney’s 16 percent.
Further boosting the Gingrich campaign is the knowledge that much of Herman Cain’s support comes from Democrats that the polling firm believes will crossover to vote in open primaries. Cain was the choice of 36 percent of Democrats – more than double any other Republican nominee – suggesting that his poll numbers might be nationally inflated and that conservatives truly are coalescing around Gingrich.
Still, the former Speaker faces a tough road to the nomination. A rocky start to his campaign means that he has been playing catchup in Iowa, hiring his first paid staffers and opening two offices in the state earlier this month. Traditionally, the caucuses have favored candidates who have engaged in retail politics and spent generously in the state, meaning Gingrich will have to account for conservative defections to candidates like Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum.
Tough road ahead? Yes. But he is proving to the most formidable of the “anti-Romney’s” who’ve skyrocketed and crashed and burned in recent months. Is he in for a big crash and burn, too?
13 Responses to “National Poll: Gingrich Opens Nine Point Lead Over Romney”
I find the support with independents to be quite stunning. Here’s a man who redefined divisive politics, Congressional inaction, cultural warfare & sanctimony, and yet he’s garnering independent support? I thought independents were sick of the very stuff he peddles! What’s the deal here?
Barky, the voters have a short memory and do not remember the divisive politics during that time. They remember the balanced budgets that the tech explosion had on the economy that the politicians take credit for and the congressional investigation into Clinton’s lies he told during hearings.
The Republicans really have a problem right now. They have to decide which of the two leaders for the nomination is “Flip” and which one is “Flop”. Either way they most likely will self distruct resulting in the reelection of Obama leading to another 4 years of “do nothing government and overspending” unless the left can translate the reelection of Obama into congressional majorities.
Can’t be Nine points, Cain already used up all the nines.
If Gingrich does win the nomination the voters will be reminded about his history. Then we’ll see what really happens with support from independents.
Yep, Newt will be done once the archives are opened up. People don’t remember his actual record. They probably think he has been a political analyst this entire time.
His personal life alone will be tough to get past.
What more can be said about the GOP playing field? The last 12 years have been extremely complicated and messed up. They can’t find anyone who was actually part of govt during that timeframe who can get support. Herman Cain and now Newt? Good grief. The GOP had a really good shot at beating Obama next year but if this is the best they can do they are screwed. Their entire base is shooting the party in the foot. Something about chickens coming home to roost comes to mind.
I really have to stop being surprised when yet another truly horrible GOP nincompoop takes the lead. Yep, they’re all just…awful. I’m not sure what I expect — a really decent choice who somehow happens to be a Republican pol, as if I would ever vote for such a person if ze existed anyway? I need to lower my expectations to hoping Obama wins again. *Sigh*.
Part of Newts record below, Independents want him – I don’t think so.
GOOGLE – “Gingrich: I’d ignore Supreme Courts, if need be” aka NEWT GINGRICH Building the New World Order” to see the real Newt.
1979 – Elected to Congress from Georgia’s 6th District
1979 – Voted to create the Department of Education, under President Jimmy Carter 1990 – Becomes member of Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
1993 – Voted for NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement
1994 – Supported the WTO, the World Trade Organization. Voted for GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that subjected Americans to the international authority of the WTO
1995 – Becomes Speaker of the House of Representatives and recommends reading The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler as required reading for all of his Congressional colleagues.
1995 – Delivers speech to the Center for Strategic and International Affairs in which he blames the US Constitution for making America’s role in leading the world more difficult! Read his full quote in accompanying article, “The American challenge in leading the world is compounded by our Constitution…”.
1995 – Wrote the foreword to another one of Toffler’s books, The Politics of the Third Wave, Creating a New Civilization
1995 – The liberal establishment Time Magazine names Newt Gingrich their “Man of the Year”
1995 – Appeals to the US House of Representatives to increase the power of the Presidency by repealing the War Powers Act of 1972, and urged President Clinton to expand the US military presence in Bosnia.
1996 – Under his leadership, Congress passed the largest single spending increase on education in US history, a whopping $3.5 billion dollars!
1999 – Newt resigns over failed midterm elections in which Republicans lost 5 seats, the worst loss in history for a Party who did not control the White House! At the same time, he was also involved in a flap over an extra marital affair and a controversial book deal! “The Reincarnation of Newt”
2008 – Records the ‘We Can Solve It’ global warming TV commercial for Al Gore along with Nancy Pelosi
2009-2010 – Travels around the country with Al Sharpton and Arne Duncan to [romote President Obama’s new educational policies: i.e. increased local control of schools with increased Federal subsidies and regulations from Washington. (Sounds like quite a contradiction to me.)
2010 – Supported ultra-liberal, pro-abortion, pro-union, establishment candidate Dede Scozzafava in New York’s 23rd Congressional District in a special election, over conservative candidate Doug Hoffman.
RON PAUL 2012 END THE FED. Nothing else matters if the Fed sells us out, we need control of our money before we loose it and our country with it. Ask yourself why the RNC, DNC, MSM, Federal Reserve and the complicit 535 (- Ron and Rand) congressman in DC do not want Paul to close the Fed – their purse string?
Y’know, if he were a democrat, minus the 1998/99 loss of Seats in Congress, most of those defects would be counted as plusses-I think that’s why he appeals to “independents”-in comparison with the Michelle Bachmans and Ricky Santorums, he’s a Moderate, and when compared to other moderates in the GOP (McCain, Snowe, Romney), he’s got a spine.
Given the distance to the Election, however, I still think he’s not serious about running-he’s doing this for kicks.
So Newt is the GOP messiah of the month now? How pathetic.
JPD-
It’s not your money anymore. It’s owed to the Capitalists whom own the bonds and they are waiting to be paid.
Nothing you can do.
“Part of Newts record below, Independents want him – I don’t think so.”
that is a nice list of things that moderates might actually consider interesting….
and lets not forget he called the Ryan plan “extreme”…Newt didn’t want to kill grandma.
too bad Newt is damaged goods.