Mitt Romney is pulling away from the pack and has reached his highest level of support nationally, according to Gallup’s daily tracking poll of registered Republicans.
Romney came in at 34 percent, followed by Rick Santorum at 15 percent, Newt Gingrich at 14 percent, Ron Paul at 13 percent, Rick Perry at 5 percent and Jon Huntsman at 2 percent.
The only candidate to poll higher was Gingrich back in early December, when he peaked at 37 percent. The former House Speaker has been on a sharp downward course ever since.
Romney and Gingrich began the year in a dead heat at 24 percent and 23 percent respectively, but their trajectories have since gone in opposite directions.
The Gallup poll, which was conducted between Jan. 7 and Jan. 11, is the first to incorporate survey data from after the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary, which Romney won overwhelmingly.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
7 Responses
1. That’s a poll of Republicans. What matter is versus Obama.
2. Gingrich seems intent on proving why he messed up as Speaker, and giving arguments against his own cause. Paul’s views on several areas are too radical, meaning enough Republicans would vote for Obama over him and doom him in the election. Santorum not only has to live down be trounced the last time he ran for office, but is focusing on social issues in a year where economics is the major issue. So unless one of them can pull something out of a hat, Romney’s won the nomination, and now has to convince people to support a Wall Street type in a year where most people prefer to “tar and feather” anyone in his former line of work.
The person elected as President in the upcoming general election will be either Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Barack Obama. If Romney becomes the Republican nominee, Pres. Obama will likely serve two terms.
If all the votes of the “not-Romney” candidates, other than Ron paul, were consolidated into one candidate they would have 36% of the vote, more than Romney. There’s just too many candidates splitting the vote.
#2/3- ideologically, Ron Paul is really not a conservative. Many if not most of his votes are from libertarians attracted to his isolationism, tolerance for drugs, and tolerance for gays. While Romney waffles, he’s actually a very mainstream conservative and will probably have the support of all the other Republicans (other than Paul) after he wins the primary. Also many of Gingrich supporters probably prefer Romney to any of the other non-Romneys.
Newt has waffled even more than Romney, and usually did it out of conviction rather than desiring to work with the opposition in governing. Along with his anti-capitalism tirade, he’s probbly out of it. Santorum has to live doesn the trouncing he got in 2006, and the fact he isn’t a fiscal conserative (ear marks, tax subsidies for pet causes), but mainly he is still focuses on abortion and gays, and everyone else is interested in jobs and the budget.
Rick Santorum would be the best candidate, but, as much as i want him to win he needs a miracle to win the nominee.
Interesting math to note,
Romney= 34%
(The “Conservative” Candidates)
Perry+Gingrich+Santorum= 5+15+14=%34
It seems it is hardly too late to have a conservative alternative to Romney…but by the time two of them drop out, it will already be “inevitable”…
Comments 3 and 6: I think there is an erroneous but unstated assumption underlying your analyses. You appear to assume that the supporters of a non-Romney candidate would switch their support to another non-Romney candidate if their first choices were eliminated from the race. While that is, perhaps, a reasonable assumption, it is not supported by polling data which shows that Romney is the second choice of many Republicans for whom a non-Romney is the first choice. So rather than consolidating the votes for a dwindling quantity non-Romney candidates, Romney is picking up a portion of the voters who formerly supported an eliminated non-Romney candidate, and this trend may continue until Mr. Romney is assured of the Republican nomination.
For ABO Republicans (anybody but Obama), this is good news, as Mr. Romney is the second-best candidate in a 2-person race against the President. The first-best Republican candidate against the president is a (or is it the) generic Republican, and she’s not going to be the nominee.