{"id":40802236065,"date":"2011-12-02T15:23:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2011\/12\/02\/is-gingrich-the-phoenix\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:22:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:22:05","slug":"is-gingrich-the-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2011\/12\/02\/is-gingrich-the-phoenix\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Gingrich the Phoenix?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest Rasmussen poll has Newt Gingrich with a 21 point lead over Mitt Romney among Republican voters.  <\/span>How did this happen?<\/p>\n

Well, a few caveats.  <\/span>First, there is no such \u201clead,\u201d because there is no such thing as a national primary in which these candidates are competing.  <\/span>At this stage of the game, the only polls that tell us anything at all about the race are those in Iowa and New Hampshire, and to a lesser extent, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada.  <\/span>Once the early contests winnow down the field, the preferences of the national \u201celectorate\u201d shift toward the leading contenders.  <\/span>Although, I should note that Gingrich is ahead in recent polls from all of those states except New Hampshire (and Nevada where there have been no reputable polls).<\/p>\n

Secondly, the Rasmussen poll results tend to swing much more widely on the \u201cflavor of the month\u201d candidate than other polls have.  <\/span>So, I\u2019m not sure that Gingrich is quite at 38% to Romney\u2019s 17%.  <\/span>But it does make a great headline, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

My examination of the GOP nomination preference polls over the past six months indicates that each candidate has a base of support.  <\/span>For most \u2013 Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Gingrich \u2013 support levels consistently register between 5% and 10%.  <\/span>For Romney, it hovers around 20%.  <\/span><\/p>\n

According to the RealClearPolitics.com polling average<\/a>, Romney\u2019s support over the past six months has ranged from 17% to 25%.  <\/span>Bachman\u2019s support went as high as 14% in mid-July before tailing off.  <\/span>Perry then zoomed over the 30% mark for a short time in mid-September before plummeting.  <\/span>Then Cain reached a poll average of 26% in mid-October and held it for a couple of weeks before scandal caught up with him.  <\/span>Now we see Gingrich averaging 27% nationally.<\/p>\n

My rough read of these polls is that about 20% of the Republican electorate just can\u2019t settle on a candidate.  <\/span>[In the Rasmussen polls, it looks more like 30%.  <\/span>I\u2019m not sure why his sample has more of these fickle voters, but it certainly makes for more interesting results.]<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that each of the prior \u201csurging\u201d candidates had a five or six week period where their numbers were ticking up, before topping off and dropping.  <\/span>Newt\u2019s numbers started to climb four weeks ago.  <\/span>So the question for Newt Gingrich is whether he will peak too early (i.e. will his numbers start dropping by mid-month) or whether his rise is timed just right for a strong showing in Iowa on January 3rd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Regardless, considering how the former House Speaker\u2019s political obituary was written just a few months ago, his ascendance into the leading spot is shocking.  <\/span>It\u2019s even more astonishing, because he accomplished this while focusing his campaign strategy almost entirely on attacking the media, including his fellow travelers on Fox and syndicated radio.<\/p>\n

I have to admit there\u2019s something about his biting-the-hand-that-feeds-you approach that I admire.  <\/span>It has made the press apoplectic.  <\/span>\u201cHe\u2019s using attacks on us to avoid answering substantive questions,\u201d they say.  <\/span>They\u2019re right, of course, but what they miss is that Newt also has a point.  <\/span>His criticism of how the press focuses on process over policy is generally on the mark.  <\/span>And that brings us to where the GOP nomination battle stands today.<\/p>\n

I recently did a radio interview about the polls on America Now with Andy Dean.  <\/span>Dean used the analogy of college football bowl invitations to describe how Gingrich is overtaking Cain.  <\/span>Basically, you have two teams with an 11 and 1 record.  <\/span>One team has some quality wins but suffered one loss late in the season.  <\/span>The other team had a horrible, embarrassing loss early on, but has managed to scrape out quiet wins for the remainder of the season.  <\/span>Which team gets invited to the major bowl?  <\/span>[I would have actually used the NCAA hoops Big Dance at-large bids, but you get the picture.]<\/p>\n

It can be argued that Gingrich\u2019s \u201csins\u201d – both personal and political \u2013 are substantively more egregious than Cain\u2019s.  <\/span>However, since the Cain revelations are new and Gingrich\u2019s have been known for some time, Gingrich is able to use Cain\u2019s downfall to his advantage.<\/p>\n

Can you spot the irony in all this?  <\/span>Newt\u2019s recent success can at least partially \u2013 if not mostly \u2013 be attributed to the \u201cmainstream media\u201d he has railed against.  <\/span>The relevance of the Cain stories for Republican voters is largely because of how they are being highlighted in the press.  <\/span>In media terms, the Cain story is sexy (excuse the pun) whereas the Gingrich story is old news.  <\/span>The media have moved on because it no longer has the titillation factor (apologies again).<\/p>\n

So if Newt can perform the unthinkable and wrest the nomination from Mitt he may have to send out thank-you notes to all those members of the press he blasted along the way.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s still a month to go before the first caucus.  <\/span>That\u2019s more than enough time for another Gingrich transgression to make its way into the mainstream media and scupper his chances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest Rasmussen poll has Newt Gingrich with a 21 point lead over Mitt Romney among Republican voters.  How did this happen? Well, a few caveats.  First, there is no such \u201clead,\u201d because there is no such thing as a national primary in which these candidates are competing.  At this stage of the game, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":939,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802236065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802236065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802247267,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236065\/revisions\/40802247267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802236065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802236065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802236065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}