Rasmussen poll puts Gingrich up by 7 nationally (Newt-35, Mitt-28, Santorum-16, Paul-10)

Hot Air ^ | 1/24/2012 | Ed Morrissey

[TBBT]

Rasmussen conducted a national poll of 1,000 likely Republican primary voters yesterday, and it confirmed what Gallup’s tracking poll also shows — Newt Gingrich’s second boomlet is for real. In the Rasmussen poll, Gingrich has vaulted to a seven-point lead as Romney settles back into the mid-20s:

After his game-changing win in South Carolina, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich continues to ride his surge to the front of the pack among likely Republican primary voters nationwide. He now leads Mitt Romney by seven points.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary Voters shows Gingrich with 35% of the vote, representing an eight-point increase in support from last week. Former Massachusetts Governor Romney now draws 28%. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s support is little changed at 16%, while Texas Congressman Ron Paul picks up 10%. …

[KansasGirl]

Ha ha, tthat’s funny! Good for him, and congratulations on your engagement!

[omega4179]

Romney is absolutely deflating and is furious. Guy has been running six years nonstop.
He is anti-life
He raised Taxes
He rubber stamped all Democratic legislation in MA
He is “better than Ted Kennedy” on Gay agenda
Romney is #whiteObama

[Marcella]

“Ouch....stop....yer makin’ my sides hurt!”

What? You’re laughing at me? Well, sister, do you have Newt sitting on the table next to you? I thought not. I’m going to tell him you laughed at us, so there. You have “Newt cup envy”, a psychological disorder. :-) :-)

[Windflier]

Well, sister, do you have Newt sitting on the table next to you? I thought not. I’m going to tell him you laughed at us, so there. You have “Newt cup envy”, a psychological disorder. :-) :-)

Brother Windy here, and I am NOT jealous!!! (well, ok, just a little :-)

You really did crack me up, though. That's the best laugh I've had for days. I needed it, too. Thanks!

[County Agent Hank Kimball]

I would bet a lot of money that Santorum endorses Myth. He’s been REALLY nasty about Newt - not nearly so much as far as Myth goes. He knows if he endorses Romney his stock will go up within the GOP establishment for 4 or 8 years from now.

Hank

[County Agent Hank Kimball]

Don’t think Sarah would take it, do you?

Rubio on the other hand.....

Hank

[ez]

He may play ball with the big boys and live to run again.

[Art in Idaho]

Don’t think Sarah would take it, do you?

I think if polls showed a Newt/Sarah ticket would make it 52/48, then I think she would 'volunteer' for the good of the country. She knows how serious this election is. . .

[JediJones]

Santorum needs to read the tea leaves already and strike a deal to be Newt’s V.P. before he has no leverage left at all.

[RitaOK]

Wish Newt had Santorum’s majority. That would terrify the Establishment, but they do recognize that number is likely coming to Newt and knowing that is causing a scramble to dump Romney and try to hustle another. Desperate.

[Sola Veritas]

“When Santorum drops out and endorses Newt, Mittens will be history. Gingrich/Santorum 2012.”

I hope Rick meets with Newt, works out a deal, and then drops and endorses before he creates too much bad blood. I would REALLY like to see a Gignrich/Santorum ticket.

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[darrellmaurina]

First, to Jim Robinson, thank you **VERY MUCH** for pinging me on this.

Whether we're Gingrich or Santorum supporters, seeing Romney's numbers drop is very good news.

Much of Romney's support has been coming from people who (wrongly) thought his win was inevitable or people who (wrongly) thought he's the best guy to defeat Romney. South Carolina poked the hot air out of that balloon.

I want to see Romney in third place, not just second.

12 posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 2:31:35 PM by PAConservative1: “I doubt Santorum is going anywhere anytime soon. The GOP Establishment is pumping him up so he can continue to siphon votes away from Newt.”

(Also pinged to County Agent Hank Kimball and ez with similar views)

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Santorum was a senator and developed personal relationships with colleagues, which is what people have to do to succeed in the Senate, but many of his followers are regarded as the “great unwashed” by Republican elites. There's no love lost there.

If you need a recent example, don't forget what happened when the Republican National Committee sent the “Young Eagles” to bondage sex clubs as paybacks for donations. Maybe secular conservatives laughed that off as stupidity. We didn't, and our fury over that was a big part of why the Republican National Committee chairman lost his job.

Outside the South, evangelicals have a long history of bad relationships with the Republican Party establishment, and the same is even more true of ethnic blue-collar Roman Catholics, despite the role of both groups as a key part of the “Reagan Democrat” movement into the Republican Party because of opposition to abortion, anti-Communism, and related issues. The only reason the bad relationships don't exist in the South is that the Republican Party for all practical purposes didn't exist in the South before the conservative migration out of the Democratic Party into the Republican Party, and conservative evangelicals have been a part of that migration almost from the beginning.

Rick Santorum was part of that generation, and while I can't speak for what he experienced in Pennsylvania, I know from long and bitter personal experience what happened in other midwestern industrial states when lots of newcomers started trying to join the Republican Party.

Lots of the old Republican leaders are long since dead or retired, and I wouldn't name names anyway, but I had a front-row seat in the audience during those fights and even a “bit player” role in person as a state convention delegate during the struggle for control of the Michigan Republican Party in the 1980s. I was viewed as a “safe” evangelical because of my family ties and prior personal history in Republican activism, but things would have gotten bad if I'd ever sought a leadership position where my vote would have counted.

Much of the venom being directed today by the Republican leadership toward the Tea Partiers was directed toward us a generation ago, and let's just say bad memories die hard. It hurt me personally to see party leaders I respected quoted in the newspapers telling reporters that so-and-so “needs to remember they're running for political office, not for Pope,” and it angered me when I saw blasphemous comments deliberately being said to Christian conservative leaders in their face with the intent of provoking an angry response that would get them branded as extremists for their outbursts.

Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics have our problems and I'm definitely not trying to minimize them. Our biggest problem is a failure to understand that holding out for the best candidate sometimes means we end up getting the worst possible candidate by making the perfect into the enemy of the good. Let's just say overly cozy relationships with the Republican leadership are not something that flows out of a focus on trying to demand perfection in candidates.

[darrellmaurina]

TYPO ALERT: I meant to say this: “Much of Romney’s support has been coming from people who (wrongly) thought his win was inevitable or people who (wrongly) thought he’s the best guy to defeat Obama. South Carolina poked the hot air out of that balloon.”