A new poll from Public Policy Polling shows Rick Santorum surging far ahead of Mitt Romney in among Republicans in a new nationwide poll: Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP’s newest national poll. He’s at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul.

It used to be that Gingrich was leading with all these groups and Romney was staying competitive enough with them to hold the overall lead. No more- a consensus conservative candidate finally seems to be emerging and it’s Santorum.

The best thing Romney might have going for him right now is Gingrich’s continued presence in the race. If Gingrich dropped out 58% of his supporters say they would move to Santorum, while 22% would go to Romney and 17% to Paul. Santorum gets to 50% in the Newt free field to 28% for Romney and 15% for Paul.

It’s all quite improbable, really. The former Senator from Pennsylvania who lost his 2006 re-election bid by one of the highest margins of any incumbent Senator in American history, and who spent most of 2011 languishing at the bottom of the polls now the front runner in the race for the Republican nomination? Well it’s worth noting that the PPP poll is not consistent with other nearly contemporaneous polls that were released shortly before it was. Fox News’s poll, for example, showed Romney leading by ten points and the latest iteration of the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll shows Romney up by 12 over Santorum, although it’s worth noting that Gallup’s poll does show that Romney’s support level has been steadily declining while Santorum’s has been steadily increasing.  At the same time, though, neither poll (and no other poll so far) shows the kind of massive surge for Santorum that PPP does in this poll so, we could be looking at a poll that is catching the cutting edge of a real trend or, we could be looking at a massive statistical outlier due to bad sampling or some other factor.

Nonetheless, it’s fairly clear that Santorum’s victory on Tuesday, as symbolic as they may have been, have benefited him. Additionally, his speech at CPAC yesterday was fairly well received and his supporters appear to be mounting an aggressive campaign for support in the CPAC Straw Poll, the results of which will be released later today. So, this really could be Santorum’s moment, and Nate Silver argues that he has a better chance at winning the nomination than some might think:

Republicans have so far declined several opportunities to coalesce around Mr. Romney. They did not do so after he announced his candidacy, nor after Mr. Perry sunk in the polls, nor when Mr. Cain withdrew, nor after Mr. Romney’s apparent win in Iowa and actual win in New Hampshire. And after big wins in Florida and Nevada, he is struggling yet again.

Mr. Santorum is a fresher face, comparatively speaking. He clearly did not get much momentum from his strong showing in Iowa. But his Iowa surge had been largely confined to that state to begin with, and he was hurt by the fact that the next state to vote was New Hampshire, a bad fit for him culturally, as well as the fact that he was not announced as the actual winner until after the New Hampshire voting. On Tuesday, by contrast, he earned victories in three states, and he seems to be on the move in national polls as well.

But Mr. Santorum will not be as easy a mark for Mr. Romney as someone like Mr. Gingrich. The results in Florida had seemed to suggest that Mr. Romney could win a state any time he wanted to by blanketing it with advertising dollars. But almost all of those ads were negative, and almost all of them attacked Mr. Gingrich — most of them on his personal failings like his resignation from Congress and his ties to Freddie Mac.

Mr. Romney’s attacks on Mr. Santorum, by contrast, have focused on more venial sins: that he is a “career politician” who defended earmarks.

Meanwhile, Mr. Santorum closed strongly and outperformed his polls in several states so far, including Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri and South Carolina (where he was projected to place fourth by the polls but finished in third). That could indicate that voters like Mr. Santorum the more they get to know him — indeed, his favorability ratings are strong among Republican voters — or that his supporters are more enthusiastic. Either quality would be an asset going forward, allowing him to win his share of close calls against Mr. Romney.

Thus, it seems at least possible that Mr. Santorum’s momentum will be more sustainable. To have a chance at winning in the delegate count, he will need to supplant Mr. Gingrich as Mr. Romney’s major rival in the South. The results in Missouri, a borderline Southern state where Mr. Santorum beat Mr. Romney by 30 points without Mr. Gingrich on the ballot, suggest that he could run strongly if Mr. Gingrich were to bow out.

Like I said, it all seems very improbable, and the idea of Rick Santorum as the Republican nominee should scare the crap out of any Republican who actually wants to have a chance of winning in November. But this is been a year of improbabilities and, given the continued reluctance of conservatives to make peace with Mitt Romney, maybe it isn’t all that improbable after all that they’d coalesce behind the most improbable, and seemingly unelectable, candidate of them all.

I noted after Tuesday’s contests in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado that turnout in those contests was down across the board, continuing a trend that we’ve seen since the beginning of the year in every contest with the exception of South Carolina. This has led many pundits, and especially many Democrats, to speculate that Republican voters are less enthusiastic about the 2012 race than some might have anticipated, which potentially does not bode well for November. Today in the Wall Street Journal, however, Peggy Noonan notes that there are other signs out there that there may be something else going on other than disaffected Republicans:

There are some small indicators something else may be going on. Cable news ratings, which should spike in an election year, and which indicate interest on both the left and the right, are relatively flat, with mild increases here and there. Broadcast evening news ratings continue their gradual decline. One network anchor, on being urged to capture more of the joy and ferocity of the Republican contest, sighed. “Every time we show those guys, our numbers go down.” A major website operator tells me people aren’t clicking on political stories.

But it’s not confined to the Republican side. Look at President Obama’s State of the Union numbers. That speech famously blankets all television and radio networks. His first speech to a joint session of Congress, in February 2009, drew 52 million viewers. A year later the State of the Union had an understandable fall-off to about 48 million. In 2011, another fall: 43 million watched. A few weeks ago his 2012 State of the Union drew just 38 million. From 52 to 38: That’s quite a decline. And again, during an continuing crisis and in a presidential election year. As for the president’s interviews and other speeches, well, when was the last time you heard someone ask excitedly, “Did you hear what Obama said?”

Whose numbers are up? The NFL’s.

Maybe the story the political class is missing is not “They don’t like the Republican field,” or “They don’t like Obama.” Maybe the story is that people are tuning out altogether. Maybe they’re bored with politics, and most especially with politicians. Maybe they don’t think our government can’t solve anything. Maybe, even, our political class has done such a good job depicting the crisis we’re in that the American people, with their low faith in institutions, think nothing, really, can be done about it.

There’s a problem with trying to draw a conclusion based on television ratings, of course. With the constantly expanding menu of choices available on television and online, it’s somewhat inevitable that the audience for any particular broadcast will be lower as people go off in search of other offerings. Additionally, the ratings services don’t currently track people who watch cable news online or on mobile devices, which is segment of the population that is only going to grow lager. At the same time, though, something like the State Of The Union Address is broadcast by pretty much every cable news outlet, and every broadcast network so a drop off of 14 million voters over three years, and lower viewership in an election year when people are arguably starting to pay more attention to these issues may indeed be indicative of something other than Republicans who are annoyed at a crappy field of candidates.

There’s other evidence to support Noonan’s thesis that we’re looking at an electorate burned out on politics in general rather than something indicative of the only the state of affairs in the Republican Party. Public dissatisfaction with Congress is higher than it’s ever been, and the only direction that public disapproval of Congress seems to be moving these days is lower and lower. In the new Gallup poll, for example, Congressional job approval hit the lowest point it has ever been at since galup has been polling that question. Eventually, Congressman is likely to be as disreputable a profession as Mafia Hit Man, and at least Mafia Hit Men bring some canoli along.

You can also see evidence of public dissatisfaction in the bellwether Right Track/Wrong Track poll which, while off the highs it hit in November, is still higher than its been at any time in the Obama Presidency. Given the still fragile state of the economy it’s not surprising that Americans would still think that the country is heading in the wrong direction. but I think there’s more to it than that. For three years or more now, they have seen a Washington incapable of doing anything to address their problems. Three times last year, they saw Congress drag a budget dispute down to the wire because of an inability to either compromise or seriously address the issues facing the country, only to “resolve” it by reaching a deal that accomplished nothing but kicking the can even further down the road. They’ve seen a United States Senate that’s gone more than 1000 days without passing a budget and House Republicans who have embraced a no-tax orthodoxy that even their great hero Ronald Reagan would not (and did not) embrace. And they’ve seen a President who seems more comfortable being a follower than a leader. And through it all they see a stagnant economy and a world where they can’t be sure that their children will have a better life than they did. Is it any wonder that people are pessimistic about the future of the country, or that they might be coming to have a “to hell with it all” attitude about politics?

Barack Obama was elected President four years ago on a message of “hope and change” and a promise to change Washington. Those who had faith in that message were, by and large, naive in the belief that change could or would happen quickly. However, when they look around and see that nothing has changed at all, one has to wonder if they’re just going to conclude it’s not worth caring about this crap anymore.

William F. Buckley Jr. was once quoted as saying that he’d rather be ruled by the first 400 names in the Boston telephone directory than the faculty at Harvard. Apparently, most Americans feel the same way:

The public’s perception of Congress has sunk to yet another new low, with 43 percent of likely voters believing that a random name pulled from the White Pages would be better than the gang they’ve installed in Congress. According to Rasumssen polls, that is essentially equal to the worst public reading they have on record: 45 percent.

What’s more, the pollster found that lawmakers are ignorant of constituents, with 82 percent of likely voters believing that their House and Senate members listen to party leaders in Congress. Only 10 percent said that lawmakers listen to voters they represent.

The new poll is in line with others that show near historically low public approval ratings for Congress. In fact, if the ratings go down much further in some polls, it will be within the margin of error.

The phone book rating results were pretty much even across the board, with Republicans and Democrats in near agreement. In the poll, just 38 percent disagreed that a Congress made up of random picks would do better than the current group.

Sometimes, the American people get it just about right.

I speculated last week that, notwithstanding the American public’s rather obvious war wariness,  making the public case for military action against Iran wouldn’t be all that difficult given the three decades of antipathy between the United States and the Islamic Republic that started with the Iranian Hostage Crisis. A new poll from The Hill would seem to confirm that suspicion:

Nearly half of likely voters think the United States should be willing to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to this week’s The Hill Poll.

Forty-nine percent said military force should be used, while 31 percent said it should not and 20 percent were not sure.

Sixty-two percent of likely voters said they were somewhat or very concerned about Iran making a terrorist strike on the United States, while 37 percent said they were not very concerned or not at all concerned about it.

As Ed Morrissey notes, support for the idea of military action against Iran is at majority or near-majority levels across nearly all reported demographic groups:

Among the youngest voting set that would have to disproportionately contribute to that effort (18-39YOs), support is almost exactly equal to the overall survey, 49/30.  In fact, there is almost no difference between any of the three age demos.  Income demos are all in favor of it by majorities or large pluralities; the most supportive are the under-$20K demo (53/32) and $40-60K demo (56/27).  There is no real difference between those with children at home (50/28) and those without (49/32).  Democrats narrowly support the idea (41/37) although self-described liberals (32/42) do not.  In fact, the only real partisan difference in the entire poll comes on those who approve of Barack Obama’s performance.  The more people approve of it, the less likely they are to support the idea of attacking Iran to stop the nuclear weapon.

Of course, if the President making the case for military action at some point in the near future happens to be Barack Obama that last group is likely to come along with everyone else. There will be dissenters, of course, but what numbers like this suggest to me is that the idea of military action against Iran is already so engrained in the American psyche that it’s unlikely that any future President would have to worry about the legacy of the unpopular wars in Iraq or Afghanistan in making their case to the American public for action in Iran.

Thanks in large part to an organization that’s been in existence since the 2008 election, not to mention a significant population of Mormons, Mitt Romney looks to be headed for a huge victory in tomorrow’s Nevada Caucuses. Yesterday, for example, we got a poll from the Las Vegas Review-Journal showing Romney leading Newt Gingrich by twenty points and just below the 50% mark. It’s not at all inconceivable that Romeny will pass the 50% barrier. In 2008, he managed to get 51% of the vote, blowing his opposition out of the water by a 37 point margin. Additionally, the latest Public Policy Polling poll shows Romney above 50% with room to grow:

Mitt Romney is headed for a dominant victory in Nevada on Saturday.  PPP finds him polling at 50% to 25% for Newt Gingrich, 15% for Ron Paul, and 8% for Rick Santorum.

Certainly in Nevada the Mormon vote will get a lot of attention and Romney leads Paul 78-14 with that group, which we project to account for 20% of the vote. But Romney’s dominance in Nevada goes well beyond that. He’s winning voters describing as ‘very conservative,’ a group he’s had huge amount of trouble with in other states, by a 43-34 margin over Gingrich. He’s also winning men, women, Hispanics, whites, and every age group that we track. This will be a pretty thorough victory for him.

The bad news for Gingrich isn’t just that’s headed for a distant second place finish. Nevada Republicans actively dislike him, with only 41% holding a favorable opinion of him to 49% with a negative one. That’s an indication that GOP voters might be starting to sour on him again, sending his numbers back to pre-South Carolina levels.

Santorum has great favorability numbers, with 64% of voters seeing him positively to only 23% with a negative opinion. That was the case in Florida as well, but it’s just not translating into much support for him. He’s the most frequent 2nd choice candidate in Nevada with 30% picking him on that question and no one else above 16%.  That’s more evidence that in a less crowded field he might be able to get some more traction. But for now it’s just not happening.

Santorum doesn’t seem to be mounting much of a campaign in Nevada, and Gingrich’s campaign is suffering from incredible disorganization, so the possibility that Ron Paul could surprise and come in second like he did in 2008 does exist, although it seems like a difficult feat for him to accomplish this time around. This is a caucus, though, so organization and committed supporters, of which there seem to be plenty for Paul in The Silver State, could make for a surprise tomorrow. The one thing that won’t be a surprise, though, is what appears to be a rather easy victory for Romney as he continues to roll forward.

During the lead up to the South Carolina Primary, there was some evidence of a growing problem for Newt Gingrich with female voters in the wake of the new allegations made by one of his ex-wives. As it turned out, no gender gap materialized in the South Carolina Exit Polls. That wasn’t true last night in Florida:

For the first time in the campaign, exit polls showed a gender gap, and it worked to Romney’s advantage.

He was leading Gingrich 51-28 among women voters and was winning men by a far smaller margin of 41-35.

Ominously for the thrice-married Gingrich, only about half of women voters said they had a favorable view of him as a person, compared to about eight in 10 for Romney.

If that continues in future contests, it’s hard to see how Gingrich would ever be able to pass Romney.

If what are for the most part the final polls in Florida are any indication, then Mitt Romney appears to be headed for a massive victory in Florida tomorrow that could end up overshadowing Newt Gingrich’s impressive victory in South Carolina only nine days. Already, Gingrich’s campaign appears to be attempting to downplay the expected results tomorrow and Gingrich has said that he intends to stay in the race until the convention. Mitt Romney jabbed Gingrich a bit over that remark during a press gaggle on his campaign plane today, nothing that that is what someone who’s losing usually ends up saying. Clearly, the race will not end tomorrow regardless of how decisive the victory might be, but Romney will be heading into a phase of the race where he’s got the advantage with the biggest victory of the cycle yet under his belt.

In the new Quinnipiac poll, for example, Romney has a 14 point lead and a lead among virtually all demographic groups:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has a 43 – 29 percent lead over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich among Republican likely voters in Florida, the nation’s first big-state presidential primary, according to Quinnipiac University poll released today. Only 7 percent are undecided, but 24 percent say they might change their mind by tomorrow’s election

This compares to a 38 – 29 percent Romney lead in a January 27 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.

In today’s survey, self-described conservatives go to Romney 40 – 31 percent. He gets 38 percent of white evangelical Christians to Gingrich’s 33 percent and wins 40 percent of Tea Party members to Gingrich’s 35 percent.

Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum each have 11 percent of likely primary voters today.

Romney gets a 64 – 25 percent favorability rating from likely primary voters, compared to 61 – 28 percent Friday. Gingrich has 51 – 42 percent favorability, compared to 50 – 28 percent Friday. Santorum is at 58 – 16 percent favorable, with a negative 35 – 45 percent for Paul.

SurveyUSA, meanwhile, has Romney up by by 15 points:

Mitt Romney is poised for a decisive win in Tuesday’s 01/31/12 Florida Presidential Primary, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for WFLA-TV in Tampa. The victory will give Romney 50 additional delegates, and bring his total to 69, on the march to the 1,144 delegates needed to be nominated by the Republican Party. Because Florida is one of the few “winner take all” states in 2012, the size of Romney’s victory is not as important as in a proportionally allocated state, but SurveyUSA’s final numbers show Romney 15 points atop Gingrich, 41% to 26%.

Romney is ahead in every region of the state. Gingrich draws to within single digits among Evangelicals, pro-life voters, Tea Party voters, and younger voters, but Romney overwhelms with a 25-point advantage among the affluent, a 20-point advantage among the college educated, a 20-point advantage among women, and a 19-point advantage among voters age 50+. There is effectively no difference between those who have already voted and those who have not yet voted, so a late Gingrich surge is not anticipated.

There are two new polls out there that have the race slightly closer —- Public Policy Polling and Insider Advantage — but these polls showing a 15+ point Romney lead are repeated in a new Suffolk University Poll [PDF] that shows Romney up twenty points, as well as the polls released yesterday by Rasmusssen and NBC/Marist. Which leaves what is essentially the final RCP chart (not including the last night of PPP’s polling and whatever else is released later tonight) for the race:

The importance of a big Florida win for Romney should not be underestimated.  For the second time in a month, his campaign would have shown the GOP how vulnerable Newt Gingrich is to a negative campaign. The past week has drastically weakened the argument among Gingrich supporters that their candidate could “out debate” President Obama. Additionally, a Florida win would make Romney the only one of the remaining candidates to decisively win two of the four January contests, and nearly win a third. It would, as I noted above, essentially erase whatever damage his campaign suffered as a result of that bad week in South Carolina and the loss there. He would win the biggest primary contest until Super Tuesday. And, perhaps most importantly for Romney considering the perception that he has had a hard time getting his fellow Republicans to accept him as their candidate, he would do all this in a primary where only registered Republicans are allowed to vote.  If that’s not all an argument for Romney’s inevitability, I don’t know what is.

Repeating a survey that they had conducted two years ago, Gallup reported on Friday that, based on their surveys,  the partisan gap between Barack Obama’s job approval ratings was once again among the highest it had ever measured:

The historically high gap between partisans’ job approval ratings of Barack Obama continued during Obama’s third year in office, with an average of 80% of Democrats and 12% of Republicans approving of the job he was doing.

In fact, Obama’s Year Three average 68-percentage-point partisan gap is tied for the fourth highest in Gallup records dating back to the Eisenhower administration. Only George W. Bush’s fourth, fifth, and sixth years in office showed higher degrees of political polarization. Together, Bush and Obama account for the 7 most polarized years, and 8 of the top 10.

Notably, 3 of the top 10 years coincided with presidents’ re-election years, including Bush in 2004, Bill Clinton in 1996, and Ronald Reagan in 1984. In fact, a president’s fourth year tends to be the most polarized, as has been the case for each of the last six elected presidents. Since 1953, Eisenhower is the only elected president whose fourth year was not his most polarized; his sixth year — a midterm election year — was the one with the largest gap in his approval ratings by party.

Looking just at 2011, Obama’s third year in office and one year before he stands for re-election, Gallup finds that polarization between Republicans and Democrats was higher than it has ever been in any other third year of Presidential term since they became taking measurements:

As Gallup notes, one can probably expect polarization to be higher in advance of an election year than at other times during a President’s term. Nonetheless, Obama’s polarization numbers have been high since the beginning of his term. The gap between Republicans and Democrats on job approval was 65% in 2009 and 68% in 2010, and 68% again in 2011. One can imagine that it would be that high, if not higher, again in 2012. Of course, as James Joyner noted when he wrote about the 2009 Gallup numbers two years ago, the one thing that’s most notable is that this increased (above 50%) polarization that started with the Reagan years. Consider this chart of the average partisan gap in job approval numbers for every President from Eisenhower to George W. Bush during their full term in office:

Until we get to Reagan, no President had a partisan gap above 50% during their term. Not Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam. Not even Richard Nixon. There was a slight reversal of the trend during the Presidency of George H.W. Bush, but one imagines that is at least partly due to the massive spike in popularity that he received during and after the Persian Gulf War. His predecessors, though, went right back to the “new” era that started under Reagan, where a President would find himself not just opposed, but despised, by supporters of the opposing party. It’s a new development in American politics. If even Richard Nixon couldn’t get a 50% partisan gap in the 1970s, what it is that changed in such a short period time that, starting in the 80s, it was not only possible, but now, it seems, commonplace?

Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake argue that numbers like this are a reflection of the hyper-partisan atmosphere of modern American politics:

We are simply living in an era in which Democrats dislike a Republican president (and Republicans dislike a Democratic one) even before the commander in chief has taken a single official action.

The realization of that hyper-partisan reality has been slow in coming for Obama. But in recent months, he seems to have turned a rhetorical corner — taking the fight to Republicans (and Republicans in Congress, particularly) and all but daring them to call his bluff.

Democrats will point out that Republicans in Congress have played a significant part in the polarization; the congressional GOP has stood resolutely against almost all of Obama’s top priorities. And Obama’s still-high popularity among the Democratic base also exacerbates the gap.

For believers in bipartisanship, the next nine months are going to be tough sledding, as the already-gaping partisan divide between the two parties will only grow as the 2012 election draws nearer. And, if the last decade of Gallup numbers are any indication, there’s little turnaround in sight.

John Harris and Jonathan Allen at Politico point out the extent to which this hyperpartisanship has made the idea of bipartisanship and the so-called legislative “Grand Bargain” pretty much a fantasy at this point:

Every time there is divided government in Washington, there is a revival — among elite journalists, think tank commentators and respectable politicians of all stripes — of a cherished idea about how business should get done in the nation’s capital:

Get the most responsible adults of both parties in one room, shoo away the cameras and microphones, and don’t let the two sides come out until they have cut a deal on the most pressing problem of the day.

Call it the Split the Difference Scenario — a dream of Washington at its civic-minded best that has flourished for decades, even as the reality of Washington became ever more snarling and contentious.

Sometimes, the dream even came true, in iconic closed-door moments: a bipartisan bargain over Social Security in 1983, a high-drama budget summit at Andrews Air Force Base in 1990, a landmark spending accord between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich in 1997.

The striking fact about Washington at the start of 2012 is how many people, in public and private, say they have concluded that the capital is no longer a city of splittable differences.

This sullen judgment is by all evidence driving the political strategy of President Barack Obama, formerly an apostle of a grand bargain to solve the country’s fiscal problems.

He’s being joined by a critical mass of Washington influentials — witnessing the inability of the two parties to find common ground on the budget in 2011 — who are ready to discard the old ideal: Politicians huddling behind closed doors to cut deals is no longer viewed as necessarily even a desirable scenario, much less a plausible one.

“This election is built to have a fight,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican and the House majority whip, told POLITICO. “If you watch from the rise of the tea party [on the right] to the rise of the Occupiers [on the left]—in ’08, our country said they wanted a little more government. In 2010, they said, ‘Whoa, that was too much.’ I think 2012 is going to be the argument for the size and scope of what they want America to be, and that is healthy. We should have the debate of what we want this country to look like.”

We hear this about every Presidential election, of course. This year, we’ve been told that the 2012 election is about “the soul of the country,” and some on the right have gone so far as to say the very fate of America as anything other than a “European Socialist Welfare State” hangs in the balance. As I’ve noted in the past, the idea that any single Presidential election is so important as to be transformative is, just based on history, usually wrong. The 2012 elections will be important, of course, as all elections are but they aren’t anywhere near being the “most important election ever” as some  have suggested. More importantly, though, Republican paranoia over what Barack Obama what Barack Obama might do in a second term, motivated mostly by foolish notions of the President as some sort of force of evil, are largely overblown.

In all likelihood, the 2012 elections will result in marginal changes at best regardless of which side wins. On the Presidential side specifically, it’s similarly unlikely that we’d see the kind of definitive election that McCarthy, and others no doubt, seems to be hoping for. Presidential elections are seldom decided on such bright line issues. In fact, one can only point to a few examples in American history where that was actually the case. If the Republican nominee (most likely Mitt Romney) wins, it will be because voters decided they didn’t want to give the incumbent the reigns of office for another four years. If Obama wins, it will be because they did. None of the big issues dividing the parties will have been resolved by the outcome of a single election, although that will certainly be the way that the winner will try to spin things as they claim their “mandate.” As we’ve learned repeatedly over the past decade or so, though, mandates are fleeting and often fall apart quickly upon the rocks of Washington politics.

The real question, though, is whether the outcome of the 2012 election would make bipartisanship and the so-called “grand bargains” more or less likely. The answer seems to me to be a rather clear no regardless of what the results happen to be. If the President is re-elected, and regardless of what happens with Congress, the odds that Republicans will find it in their interest to be more conciliatory toward the White House seem pretty low, especially given that the President would likely take re-election as an endorsement of his agenda. A compromise on tax reform between a Democratic President and Republicans in Congress? Not likely. Similarly, a  Republican victory in November is likely to lead Democrats to follow the example that Republicans set in 2009 and 2010. If Republicans manage to gain control of the Senate in 2012, Harry Reid can play the filibuster game just as well as Mitch McConnell has. So, regardless of who wins, the odds that Washington will actually veer from the course that it has been on for the past 20 years or so seems to be somewhere between slim and none.

The explanation for how we ended up here will vary depending on which side of the political aisle one sits on, but at the very least it seems rather clear that the 365/24/7 nature of our political culture has tended to increase polarization rather than bringing people together to work on common problems. That may change someday, but one wonders if it might not take some kind of existential crisis to bring it about.

The first round of post-South Carolina/post-debate polling out of Florida shows a very tight race developing between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul pretty much becoming non-factors in the Sunshine State. This is a slight reversal from what we saw coming out of South Carolina, which appeared to show Newt Gingrich getting a huge bounce from the good week he had last week. Since Monday’s debate, however, where Newt Gingrich appeared to hold back while Mitt Romney went on the attack in a way that he had not in the Palmetto State, Romney has seemingly bounced back while Gingrich has slipped. All that guarantees, of course, is that tomorrow night’s debate is likely to be a very lively affair and this coming weekend is going to be one on tense campaigning from Tallahassee to Key West. Earlier in the week, Public Policy Polling showed Gingrich up by five points, which was outside the Margin Of Error, but a trio of polls released today show a much closer race.

First up, there’s a new poll from Quinnipiac which actually shows Romney in the lead, largely because the po,lling period covered two days before the South Carolina primary:

What a difference a big win can make.

A new poll indicates that since Newt Gingrich’s double digit victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, the former House speaker’s surged among people likely to vote in next Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary, and he’s moved ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

According to a Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday morning, Romney is at 36% support, with Gingrich at 34%, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania at 13%, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas at 10%, and seven percent undecided. Romney’s two point margin is well within the poll’s sampling error.

The survey was conducted Thursday through Monday, both before and after the South Carolina primary. Looking at the numbers for Thursday through Saturday, before the results of the Palmetto State contest were known, Romney had a 37% to 26% lead over Gingrich, with Santorum and Paul each at 15%.

But looking just at Sunday and Monday numbers, after the news of Gingrich’s big win in South Carolina, the former House speaker has a 40% to 34% advantage over Romney, with Santorum at 11% and Paul at 6%.

“Florida is essentially a dead heat and a two-man race between Gov. Mitt Romney and Speaker Newt Gingrich entering the last week of the campaign,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Gingrich’s South Carolina victory clearly gives him a boost in Florida. The question is whether there is more of that to come, or whether any bump from a previous victory will dissipate as happened to Rick Santorum in New Hampshire after winning Iowa and Romney in South Carolina after taking New Hampshire.”

According to the survey, 38% say they might change their mind on which candidate they are backing, and there’s little difference among Gingrich and Romney supporters in terms of thinking they may alter their decision.

The Quinnipiac poll also shows a gender gap similar to the one we saw in South Carolina polling, with men supporting Gingrich over Romney by a 37%-33% margin among men while women support Romney over Gingrich by a  38%-31% margin. The exit poling in South Carolina did not show the same gender gap the pre-election polls did, though, so its unclear what this means.

Another poll taken for the Florida Chamber of Commerce found Gingrich and Romney tied:

TALLAHASSEE, FL (January 24, 2012) – With only one week remaining before Republicans cast their vote in Florida’s Republican Primary, a new Florida Chamber of Commerce poll shows presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney in a dead heat race among Florida Republicans.

“Following the South Carolina primary, Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich arrive in Florida and begin the final week before Florida’s January 31 primary at a dead even heat – 33% each. Rick Santorum is in third place with 10% followed by Ron Paul with 6%,” said Marian Johnson, Senior Vice President of Political Operations for the Florida Chamber of Commerce. “It’s clear that both candidates need to aggressively campaign for votes in Florida.”

The poll of 504 registered Republicans was conducted January 22-23, 2012 by Cherry Communications and has a 4.4% +/- margin of error with a 95% confidence level.

Finally, there’s a new CNN/Time/ORC poll that shows yet again a neck and neck race:

Jacksonville, Florida (CNN) – One day before the final GOP presidential debate in Florida, it’s all tied up between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, according to a new survey.

A CNN/Time/ORC International Poll also indicates that while Gingrich surged following his 12-point victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, his momentum appears to be quickly cooling off.

According to the poll, 36% of people likely to vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary in the Sunshine State say they are backing Romney as the party’s nominee, with 34% supporting Gingrich. The former Massachusetts governor’s two point margin over the former House speaker is well within the survey’s sampling error.

(…)

The new survey was conducted Sunday through Tuesday, after the Palmetto State primary, and mostly before and partially after Monday night’s Republican presidential debate in Tampa, where in a role reversal, Romney aggressively attacked Gingrich.

On Sunday, the day after Gingrich won big in South Carolina, he was at 38% in Florida, with Romney at 36%, Santorum at 11% and Paul at 8%. Looking only at Monday and Tuesday’s results, Romney was at 38%, Gingrich 29% Santorum at 11% and Paul at 9%.

“Gingrich’s post-Palmetto State bounce did not last long,” adds Holland. “Monday’s debate may have something to do with that, but the data indicate that the shift to Romney began before the debate started, so there are clearly other forces at work.”

The CNN poll also reveals a gender gap, with men supporting Gingrich over Romney 35% to 31% and women supporting Romney over Gingrich 40% to 32%. Again, it’s unclear whether this means anything given the outcome in South Carolina, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on, especially considering the fact that Florida’s primary is closed so these are Republican women we’re talking about, not independents.

So, after all that, this is where RealClearPolitics puts the race:

As I said, all of this pretty much guarantees that tomorrow’s debate is likely to be as high stakes as the last several have been. I doubt that CNN and Wolf Blitzer are going to be as strict about audience behavior as NBC and Brian Williams were on Monday, so that arguably might help Gingrich. At the same time, though Romney has taken the gloves off since Monday and seems unlikely to retreat from a fight either. One of the areas where the two have been exchanging barbs and accusations today has been immigration. In an obvious effort to appeal to Florida’s Hispanic voters, Newt Gingrich has been hitting Romney and defending himself in interviews with Spanish-speaking media:

DORAL, Fla. – Newt Gingrich defended his immigration policy and declared his intent to win a majority of the Latino general election vote in an occasionally testy interview with Jorge Ramos, of Spanish-language network Univision, this morning.

Gingrich’s chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is scheduled to appear this afternoon for Univision’s candidate forum. Ramos asked Gingrich about Romney’s use of the term “self-deportation” for some illegal immigrants in Monday’s debate.

Gingrich linked his answer to Romney’s newly released tax returns as he twisted the knife into his foe.

“I think you have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million income a year with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality,” he said.

Gingrich, the former U.S. House Speaker from Georgia, is campaigning in Florida ahead of the state’s Jan. 31 Republican primary, in which Latino voters are a key bloc — and both Gingrich and Romney both are courting them today in South Florida.

Ramos pressed Gingrich on his own immigration plan, which includes a path to legal status for illegal immigrants who have been here for 20-25 years. That stance has drawn some ire from conservative immigration hawks, but Ramos came from the opposite view, pointing out that Gingrich’s plan would exclude most of the estimated 11 million people here illegally. Of the rest, Gingrich said, “I’d urge them to get a guest worker permit.”

Gingrich pledged to reform the visa system – including giving an H1 visa to every immigrant with an advanced degree in science or technology.

On the DREAM Act, a long-pending bill that would give a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who came here as children and go to college or serve in the military, Gingrich reiterated that he only supports the part that applies for the military. Romney in Monday’s debate said he shared that view.

In his own Univision interview, Romney hit back at Gingrich’s characterization of him as anti-immigrant:

On Wednesday, Romney defended his idea of “self-deportation,” which he said would essentially make it so difficult for undocumented immigrants to find work that they would be forced to leave the country. He said Gingrich has previously condoned the idea, even though he is now condemning it.

Even when confronted with an undocumented woman who attended one of his campaign events and hopes to attend college, Romney remained on message, arguing against charging undocumented immigrants in-state tuition rates. He suggested that she try “a college that’s not as expensive as others,” perhaps even Miami Dade College, adding his “guess is it’s not terribly exorbitant.”

“I’m not punishing her,” he said, in response to a question from Ramos about why he wants to punish the children of undocumented immigrants. “She can go to college. There’s no requirement that she goes to a college that provides an in-state tuition break.”

Romney said he has “compassion” for the children of undocumented immigrants, as well as immigrants abused by coyotes and legal immigrants waiting to enter the United States. Those legal immigrants are his first priority, followed by abused immigrants, he said. Undocumented immigrants who entered as children have done nothing wrong, he added, but did not say what he would do to help them.

Given the large Hispanic population in Florida, one would expect this to be a big topic in tomorrow’s debate, with Romney and Gingrich taking up most of the time. In fact, given the amount of attention that’s likely to be paid to the two front runners on any topic tomorrow night, I recommend that Santorum and Paul just agree to meet at the local Denny’s and have a late dinner while the debate’s going on, they’d probably enjoy it more.

Fox News, 1/12-1/14:
Obama, fav/unfav, 51%/46%, +5
Romney, fav/unfav, 45%/38%, +7
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 27%/56%, -29

CBS/NYT, 1/12-1/17:
Obama, fav/unfav, 38%/45%, -7
Romney, fav/unfav, 21%/35%, -14
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 17%/49%, -32

PPP, 1/13-1/17:
Obama, app/dis, 47%/50%, -3
Romney, fav/unfav, 35%/53%, -18
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 26%/60%, -34

He concludes, “America does not love Romney, but boy do they hate Newt.”

The fact that Gingrich is not viewed favorably by most Americans doesn’t surprise me. It’s why I never expected him to actually run for president, much less emerge as the last remaining alternative to Romney.

What’s actually more interesting here is the wide disparity between the results of the three surveys, all taken at essentially the same time. Obama’s favorables range from 38 to 51? Romney’s from 21 to 45? That doesn’t exactly make me confident in the usefulness of these numbers.

The Fox poll was conducted by telephone with 906 registered voters. CBS/NYT is a hodgepodge of 1154 voters, 1021 of whom are registered, 430 Republican primary voters, 367 Democratic primary voters, and 302 registered Republicans; presumably, it was also a telephone survey. PPP “surveyed 700 American voters” using “automated telephone interviews.” So, they’re all somewhat different in terms of methodology.

A new Gallup poll proclaims “Record-High 40% of Americans Identify as Independents in ’11.”

The percentage of Americans identifying as political independents increased in 2011, as is common in a non-election year, although the 40% who did so is the highest Gallup has measured, by one percentage point. More Americans continue to identify as Democrats than as Republicans, 31% to 27%.

Now, this trend is interesting: Not only do more Americans identify as Independents than at any time since Gallup started asking the question in 1951, but more Americans now identify as Independents than as members of either of the two political parties that have run the country since 1861.

But what does this mean, exactly?

It’s reasonable to conclude that, as both parties have effectively become ideological/programmatic parties rather than the centrist catch-all parties that they had been historically, they no longer do a good job of representing those of us in the broad center. Additionally, for that reason and others, Americans are likely simply more comfortable thinking of themselves as free agents rather than duty bound to identify themselves with a party.

At the same time, however, “Independent” has no effective meaning at the ballot box. While a large swatch of people–myself included–are likely to be unhappy with voting for either Barack Obama or the eventual Republican nominee (probably Mitt Romney) come election day, those will likely be the only meaningful options on the ballot.

Yes, there are various “third” parties out there. The Libertarians, Greens, Constitution Party, Reform Party, Socialist Party, and others will be on the ballot in many states. But none of these parties have benefited from the trend in “Independent” identification because the fact of being enthusiastic about neither the Republicans nor Democrats doesn’t translate into being enthusiastic about some fringe party.

A new centrist group calling itself Americans Elect will also field a candidate this cycle and may even be able have enough money to entice a credible politician to be its standard bearer and run substantial television advertising. Maybe they’ll even siphon off some votes from the major party candidates this year. In states that are non-competitive in the Electoral College, especially, there may be a strategic rationale for casting such a protest vote.

Beyond that, though, while many of us are increasingly disenchanted with the party for whom we’ve traditionally votes, there’s a strong inertia pulling us to support their candidate for president, anyway. For those of us in competitive states, our only real choices are Obama and his Republican opponent; not voting or casting a protest vote is, in effect, a vote for our least favorite of the two viable candidates.

Gallup acknowledges this in their write-up:

[W]hen independents’ party leanings are taken into account and combined with the party’s core identifiers, the parties end up tied. In 2011, 45% of Americans identified as Republicans or leaned to the Republican Party and 45% identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic.

In essence, the true number of “independents” isn’t the 40 percent who identify themselves as such but the 10 percent who don’t lean toward either party. The other 90 percent of likely voters are in the orbit of one party and have to be siphoned off; that’s much harder.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. While I’m increasingly moving from being a strong Republican to a mere leaner, I can’t at this juncture imagine voting for Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. Whether I could make the move in one cycle to voting for Obama or instead stayed home or cast a protest vote for a third party candidate, I can’t say.

Thankfully, I don’t think I’ll be forced into that position, since Romney is easily the most likely nominee.

The Des Moines Register released its final poll late last night and, although the order of finish was largely consistent with what we have seen since Christmas, there are signs of momentum going into the final 48 hours that could cause Tuesday night to be very interesting:

The Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa Poll shows a surprise three-way match-up in contention to win the Iowa Republican caucuses: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

Santorum, who has been largely invisible in the polls throughout the campaign season, is now beating the other evangelical choices and has a clear shot at victory Tuesday night.

But political analysts note there’s little time for Santorum to cash in and regroup before New Hampshire, where voters weigh in nine days from now, while Romney is positioned to replicate what he’s done in Iowa in all the early states.

In four days of polling, Romney leads at 24 percent, Paul has 22 percent and Rick Santorum, 15 percent.

But if the final two days of polling stand alone, the order reshuffles: Santorum elbows out Paul for second.

“Few saw this bombshell coming,” GOP strategist David Polyansky said. “In an already unpredictable race this is another stunning turn of political fortune.”

What makes Santorum’s growth spurt particularly striking is his last-second rise: He averaged 10 points after the first two nights of polling, but doubled that during the second two nights. Looking just at the final day of polling, he was just one point down from Romney’s 23 percent on Friday.

Paul has marched higher in every Iowa Poll, but his momentum may have stalled last week. His support eroded from 29 percent on the first day of polling to 16 percent the last.

As for the rest of the field, over the four days of polling, Newt Gingrich is at 12 percent, Rick Perry, 11 percent, and Michele Bachmann, 7 percent. Their support remained relatively steady over the four days.

Santorum’s momentum isn’t all that surprising. We’ve seen evidence of it repeated in several polls this week starting with that CNN/Time/ORC poll that came out on Tuesday. Those poll results, in turn, have led to a ton of free media coverage for the former Pennsylvania Senator both nationally and in Iowa. Meanwhile, the negative attacks on Newt Gingrich have continued pushing his poll numbers down. Of all the candidates in the field,  Santorum is the only one who hasn’t been tested yet, so it’s not surprising that he’d be the one that social conservatives might be flocking to at this point. At the same time, though, this same poll shows that upwards of 40% of likely caucus goers say that they could still change their mind over the remaining 59 hours or so before the caucuses begin. So, while the trend is looking good for Santorum right now that doesn’t mean it won’t peter out long before he needs it to. Additionally, the fact that Santorum is going up against two campaigns that are both well-funded and reportedly have the best ground operations in the state, one wonders how well Santorum will do at translating this poll momentum into foot traffic, and votes, at the caucuses.

Nate Silver, whose polling model continues to project Romney as having a 63% chance of winning on Tuesday night, offers some words of caution about these late polls:

[I]t should be remembered that polls aren’t magic. In fact, there are fundamental constraints on how accurate any poll might be. One of these constraints is imposed by sampling error: somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 Iowans are likely to attend the Republican caucuses on Tuesday, but a typical poll might survey 400 or 600 or 800 of them.

Another source of error is that polls are conducted some amount of time in advance of the actual voting. This is not always a huge deal in general elections, when voter preferences are locked in early. But in primaries and caucuses — when a great number of voters decide upon a candidate or change their mind at the last moment — taking voters’ temperature even 24 or 48 hours in advance of an election can sometimes miss last-minute shifts in momentum.

Meanwhile, relatively few Iowans turn out for the caucuses and the pollsters can at best make some educated guesses about who will and who won’t.

Nonetheless, the Des Moines Register poll is well-respected. Exactly four years ago, it showed Barack Obama with a solid lead over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the final hours of the Democratic race in Iowa, contradicting what other polls were showing but in the end turning out to be right. Similarly, the paper’s poll of the 2008 Republican field showed Mike Huckabee leading the GOP field, although its worth noting that the poll also detected a “McCain surge” in the late round of polling that never materialized on caucus night.  Nonetheless, given the DMR’s record in the past, this is a  poll worth paying attention to.

Here’s where the race stands right now according to RealClearPolitics:

This muddled mess is very different from how things looked exactly four years ago:

The end of the race chaos in the polling charts is leading many to conclude that anything could happen Tuesday night, and perhaps that’s true.  However, it strikes me that we we already know how Iowa is going to turn out regardless of what the final order of finish is. Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are both going to come out of Iowa in fairly good shape. There’s still a potential for Paul to come out on top Tuesday night, mostly because of his highly motivated supporters, but even if he does it’s not going to matter very much because Paul himself doesn’t have much of a future outside Iowa and New Hampshire. Santorum looks likely to finish at least third now, which at least gives him an argument for going on to the next phase of the race, which for him should be to bypass New Hampshire entirely and head to South Carolina for the next two and a half weeks. Romney, however, is going to leave Iowa having effectively neutralized the real competition in this race, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. Neither Paul nor Santorum are going to be the Republican nominee, and it seems hard to see how Santorum in particular survives much past January unless he somehow manages to bring in a lot more money than he has so far.  Heading into this, Romney has to like the field that presents itself to him.

There’s one more poll left to look at. Tonight, Public Policy Polling releases its last poll.

Don’t look now but President Obama’s approval ratings are closing in on levels that point to re-election.

CNN (“CNN Poll: President’s approval nearing 50%“):

President Barack Obama’s approval rating, a crucial indicator of his reelection chances, is on the rise, according to a new national survey.

A CNN/ORC International Poll out Tuesday also indicates that the partisan battle over extending the payroll tax cut may be partially responsible for the jump in the president’s numbers.

According to the survey, 49% of Americans approve of the job Obama’s doing in the White House, up five points from last month, with 48% saying they disapprove, down six points from mid-November. The 49% approval rating is the president’s highest since May, when his number hit 54% thanks to a bounce following the killing of Osama bin Laden. Since then, in CNN polling, Obama’s approval rating has hovered in the mid-40s.

“President Barack Obama’s approval rating appears to be fueled by dramatic gains among middle-income Americans,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “The data suggest that the debate over the payroll tax is helping Obama’s efforts to portray himself as the defender of the middle class.”

Obama’s gains have come at the expense of the Republicans in Congress and the GOP in general. By a 50% to 31% margin, people questioned say they have more confidence in the president than in congressional Republicans to handle the major issues facing the country. Obama held a much narrower 44% to 39% margin in March.

And the GOP’s overall favorable rating has dropped to six points, to 43%, since June, while the Democrats’ positive rating remained steady at 55%.

“The Democrats do particularly well among middle income Americans, while the Republicans win support only from the top end of the income scale,” adds Holland.

Overall, only 16% say they approve of the job Congress is doing, with 83% giving lawmakers from both parties the thumbs down. The Congressional disapproval rating has topped 80% since August in CNN polling.

The survey indicates that Obama remains personally popular, with three-quarters saying they approve of him as a person.

The last of these is likely the most crucial: Most Americans want to approve of Obama and always have. The wretched economy has made that very hard but Obama is doing a very good job of positioning himself as someone who cares very much about the plight of those suffering, is working hard to find solutions, and–most importantly–is doing so despite the intransigence of Republican obstructionists.

Now, it’s worth noting that the polling on this question is surprisingly fluid. Of the five recent polls included in the RealClearPolitics average–which has not been updated to include this just-released CNN poll–four still show higher disapproval than approval. But the three newest polls–four, if we include CNN’s–all show an upward trend.

I’m still betting on Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination and think he’s the available Republican with the best chance of beating Obama. If the economy is still in the toilet next fall, he might just do it. But it’s going to be an uphill fight. As I’ve noted many times in this space, the default position in American politics has been to re-elect incumbent presidents. And this particular one is a great fundraiser, a great campaigner, and a sunnier, more personable, fellow than any of his opponents.

Steven Taylor noted yesterday that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were tied in the latest CNN/ORC poll, and I noted in an update to James Joyner’s post this morning that there’s also a tie in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. Now, we’ve got a third national poll showing the two people at the top of the GOP race tied:

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are tied at the top of the Republican pack to win their party’s presidential nomination, each with 20 percent of GOP primary voters’ support, according to the latest CBS News Poll.

Ron Paul takes the third spot with 10 percent, while the remaining candidates enter the holiday period languishing in the single digits.

Of those surveyed, an overwhelming 79 percent said it was still to early to declare their minds made up on whom to support.

Others Republican primary voters – 17 percent according to the poll – remain completely undecided as to which candidate they will support, and another 19 percent said they’d like to have more options.

The poll shows that Gingrich and Romney receive their support from different factions of the Republican primary electorate.

Gingrich leads among self-identified conservatives and Republican primary voters who support the Tea Party movement, while Romney has the advantage with non-Tea Party supporters and moderates – but less than a third of Republican primary voters call themselves moderates.

At the very least this means that the negative campaigning is likely to continue right through the end of the year, because by all measures it’s been working. Of course, it’s worth noting that national polling doesn’t mean as much as state polling at this point, but it does give us an idea of where the momentum is, and right now Newt Gingrich has downward momentum while Mitt Romey is moving up:

Right now, things are not moving in a direction favorable to Gingrich to say the least.

Newt Gingrich has fallen into a statistical tie with Mitt Romney in the latest Gallup poll, mirroring his decline in other recent surveys.

Lydia Saad:

After enjoying 14- to 15-percentage-point leads over Mitt Romney in early December, Newt Gingrich is now statistically tied with Romney in national Republican preferences for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination: 26% for Gingrich vs. 24% for Romney. This follows a steady decline in support for Gingrich in the past 10 days.

Interestingly, though, Romney’s numbers have not moved at all, remaining flat within the polling margin.

No single candidate has benefited proportionately more from Gingrich’s 11-point decline — from 37% to 26% — over the past 10 days. Rather, Gallup polling finds slight increases in support for the six remaining major candidates in the race. Also, the percentage of Republicans favoring none of the candidates or who are unsure has risen by three points, from 14% to 17%.

Twenty-four percent of registered Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now favor Romney for the nomination. This is up just slightly from the 22% to 23% level seen for much of the first two weeks of December. Support for Ron Paul is now 11%, up from 8% to 9% earlier in the month — marking the first time his support has been above 10% since mid-September. At that time, a Gallup poll of all Republicans/Republican-leaning independents put his support at 13%.

Additionally, the national trend has been more than mirrored in Iowa:

Recent surveys of potential Iowa Republican caucus-goers show Gingrich falling behind Romney and Paul, after Gingrich led the field from mid-November through early December. This has been widely attributed to the barrage of negative ads that Gingrich’s Republican opponents have run against him in Iowa. However, even though Republicans nationwide have likely not seen or heard these ads, they have toned down their support for the former speaker, once again moving Romney close to front-runner status — something he hasn’t had an undisputed claim on since July. Unfortunately for Romney, the sizable percentage of the vote put in play by Gingrich’s recent decline has not all gone his way, but instead has been scattered among the entire field. This fits the pattern seen over and over again in 2011, in which Romney fails to benefit each time various Republican candidates have fizzled out after surging. That this pattern continues today adds to the body of evidence that a segment of Republican voters want to nominate someone other than Romney.

Of course, as Steven Taylor pointed out yesterday in response to the new CNN poll, we’re running out of Not Romney’s.

Update (Doug Mataconis): There are similar results in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll, which has Romney and Gingrich tied:

Two weeks before Iowans cast the first votes of the 2012 election cycle, Republicans nationally are sharply divided over whom their party’s presidential nominee should be, with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich locked in a dead-even race, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Gingrich and Romney are each favored by 30 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Running behind them is Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.), whose libertarian philosophy has attracted a strong following. He stands at 15 percent, about double his tally in an early November poll. All other active candidates are in the single digits.

As for the rest of the field, Bachmann is at 7%, Perry at 6%, Santorum at 4%, and Huntsman at 2%. The collapse of Newt Gingrich’s lead can be seen quite clearly in the RCP charts now:

The candidate who seems to be benefiting the most from Gingrich’s collapsing support is Romney.