Gingrich Narrowly Leads New Fox News Poll
The Gingrich boomlet rolls along:
A Fox News poll released Wednesday shows Gingrich’s support doubling in the last three weeks. He stood at 12 percent in late October — before the Cain harassment allegations and Rick Perry’s “oops” debate. Now the former House speaker is at 23 percent, essentially tied for the lead with Romney, with 22 percent.
Romney has been either the frontrunner or in second place in every Fox poll since July. He’s received the backing of between 20-26 percent of GOP primary voters for the last five months.
Cain garners 15 percent. That’s down from 24 percent last month, and slightly below his late-September standing of 17 percent.
Ron Paul receives the backing of 8 percent, edging out Perry at 7 percent. This is the first time Perry has been in single digits in Fox polling.
Among GOP primary voters who are part of the Tea Party movement, Gingrich is the top pick (35 percent), followed by Cain (20 percent). Romney (15 percent) comes in third — receiving less than half Gingrich’s support among this group.
Via David Weigel, the most amusing response in the poll has to be this one:
Well, umm okay…..
In any event, this leaves the GOP race as one big, muddled mess with Gingrich, Romeny, and Cain currently tied in the RCP poll average:
Cain is likely to continue to fall as the twin weight of the sexual harassment charges and his foreign policy gaffes take their toll. But what of Gingrich?
The Republicans are running out of candidates to go “boomlet.” Ron Paul is the only one left who can benefit from it. A boomlet for Huntsman or Santorum would take them out of last place and put them in fourth. (Big whoop.)
Of course, all these boomlets are bad news for one guy in particular: Romney. All of the boomlets save for Bachmann’s have been nipping at his heels. He may be the guy to get the nomination by default, but the lack of serious support raises questions about his ability to win the election, high unemployment or no.
I’m hoping the Newt boomlet ends soon as Republican primary voters are reminded of all the odious baggage that comes with him. But yeah, if I were Romney, I’d be worried that even a known slimeball like Gingrich was beating me out in the polls. It certainly says something about how genuinely unenthusiastic the Republican base is when it comes to his candidacy.
He’ll fall quickly as soon as he decides to leave this campaign for a younger, sexier campaign.
It’s possible that Newt will be the last “not Mitt” flavor of the week, so his polling may stick. The selectorate may also be crazy enough to go with him. If he and Romney are duking it out into the late primaries, we may yet see “draft Palin” or someone else.
I don’t think we’d see a draft Palin if Gingrich is succeeding, since the people who would want Palin would, by and large, be relatviely pleased with Newt.
If someone like Gingrich were to win Iowa, you could see a massive turn to Huntsman in New Hampshire if people think Romney is just fatally flawed. I just don’t think there’s time to get on the ballot in enough states for someone new to make an impact once they start counting the votes. But if it were to happen, I guess the leading candidates would be Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Mitch Daniels.
Barney Frank’s stealing my material. I told my wife a couple of weeks ago that the Republican campaign reminded me of Joe Louis. When Joe was heavyweight champion, they really couldn’t find anyone to challenge him. But he had to fight, so a series of not-too-skillful opponents met him in the ring, with predictable results. It became known as the “Bum of the Month Club”.