Posted on 11/26/2011 1:27:05 PM PST by SeekAndFind
I missed this ARG poll from just before Thanksgiving, taken over the course of a week among 600 likely Iowa caucus-goers, but it’s worth a look now. The top line results show Newt Gingrich moving into first place over Mitt Romney, 27% to 20%, with Ron Paul not too far back in third at 16%. No other candidate gets double digits in this result.
That more or less lines up with what other polling has shown. A survey taken a week previous to ARG’s by Rasmussen showed an even more substantial lead for Gingrich, 32/19, with Herman Cain falling into third place with 13%, and Paul fourth at 10%. Cain’s continued decline seems to have continued into the next week, perhaps giving Paul more support in the same period.
In the ARG series, this is Gingrich’s best showing since April, when he came in third behind Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. The bimonthly survey series never showed Gingrich completely out of the running in Iowa, sticking at 8% over the summer while Michele Bachmann peaked at 21% in July and Romney peaked at the same 21% in late September. Thanks to the timing of the ARG surveys, the Cain boomlet never shows up on this series, and he’s back to the same 6% he had in September. Ron Paul, however, has hit the highest level of support in the series, better than July’s 14%, but he’s still not broken above third place.
There are a couple of intriguing points in the internals. First, Gingrich has a huge lead among Republicans (30/17 over Romney) but tanks to 3% among independent caucusgoers, while Romney leads 38% to Ron Paul’s 28% in this demographic. Gingrich nearly gets a majority of Tea Party supporters (42%), but comes in a distant second among those who don’t identify with the Tea Party, 29/13 behind Romney and just ahead of Paul’s 12%. But perhaps the most indicative figure — for now, anyway — is Gingrich’s substantial lead among the most likely to attend a caucus, 32/17 over Paul, a group that comprises 74% of the sample. Among the other 26%, Romney leads 38/12 over Gingrich and Paul.
Enthusiasm seems to be on Gingrich’s side. Romney can claim some moral victory and momentum with a second-place finish no matter who wins, but a Gingrich win will complicate his ability to argue inevitability and lock down the nomination in South Carolina.
On the other hand, we’ve gotten a lot of e-mail about a PAC-funded survey that shows Ron Paul and Herman Cain tied for the lead in Iowa at 22% each, with Gingrich at 21% and Romney at 17%. However, since that survey got funded by the Revolution PAC — the super-PAC backing Paul — it should be taken with a Lot’s Wife-sized grain of salt.
Unfortunately, Romney is going to be difficult to eliminate.
I think after Tuesdays debate the polls are going to move away from Newt. We’ll see.
Romney’s counting on the conservatives being split. I’d love to see him come in fourth in every state primary or caucus. Maybe then he’ll get the message.
Ask President Huckabee why it is so important to win in Iowa...
And Rick Perry is so irrelevant that they did not even want to waste the ink it would take to print his name.
Iowa
Likely Republican
Caucus Goers Nov 2011
Bachmann 6%
Cain 6%
Gingrich 27%
Huntsman 3%
Johnson -
Paul 16%
Perry 5%
Roemer -
Romney 20%
Santorum 6%
Other -
Undecided 11%
Regardless of what ‘some’ folks think of Newt, he will be far better than the alternatives... Romney or Obama.... and America is waking up to that fact.
Go Newt.....
Paul’s numbers continue to astound me. He’s solid in areas of fiscal and monetary policy but a train-wreck everywhere else. As far as I can figure he’s become somewhat of a cult figure.
Mr. Potato Head would be far better than Romney or 0bama.
Gingrich is looking good. I would assume that at some point the other people who want to be President will start using the time tested political campaign tools against Gingrich, like negative tv ads.
There might be a sizable pro-divorcing your wife on her deathbed (I know, the tumor wasn’t cancerous, etc) constituency, but I’m guessing there are very few who would be “More likely to vote for Gingrich if they knew that”.
RE: Ron Paul
My one main fear is the man might run as an Independent. We have a significant number of Ron Paul Cultists in America who will ensure a second Obama term if this happens.
AND move towards? You don’t have a clue.
Ditto what you said
Maybe a sizable number of people believe that “Conservative” means “smaller Government”, not “big government doing things that people who consider themselves Conservative like”.
He’s really the only one that people can trust to actually make cuts, because he’s the only one who actually votes against spending.
Some people believe that when the foreign policy is exactly the same whether it’s Bush, Clinton, Bush or Obama running the show, it really isn’t a “Conservative” foreign policy.
And if Ron Paul is the nominee, do you vote for Ron Paul in November 2012?
Does Bloomberg run as a 3rd party? Or Trump? Or Romney?
What “Ron Paul Cultists” are doing a lot of these days is calling Iowans in an organized fashion. Voter ID and GOTV.
Is he a Mormon too?
I’m not sure what a Ron Paul third-party run would do. A lot of the youth vote that went to Obama last time would shift to Paul, as would the votes of the kind of leftists who think Obama has just followed in Bush’s footsteps because of his failure to shut down Gitmo and his Libya intervention.
I suspect he’d prove to be more of a John Anderson than a Ross Perot.
After Newt wins in SC and Florida, its all over. These other so called contenders can kiss his butt to try for a good job.
I’d appoint Christie Atty Gen. He can finally cleanup Holder’s mess.
Big cheap narcissistic thrill for the nutcase perps, major headache and trouble for the nation.
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