Square One? The Gingrich Surge Brings GOP Primary Back In Time

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Polling firm Public Policy Polling (D) released new numbers yesterday which showed that Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign has indeed fallen on hard times. Perry has seen his favorability drop to 18 percent among general election voters, against a 67 percent who see him unfavorably. Even Republicans are tepid on the conservative Gov., as PPP’s October GOP poll showed a nearly even 42 – 38 split on the favorability rating while he has dropped to near the bottom of the pack in the race, a move that Gallup also showed in a new survey of the Republican field. But Perry’s situation also describes the former place of another GOP candidate in the race: the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s position of five months ago.

In June of this year, PPP’s numbers showed one thing: voters did not like Newt Gingrich. The former Speaker was seen favorably by only 16 percent of general election voters, versus 68 percent who saw him unfavorably. He was even underwater within his own party, down five points in a 39 – 44 split among GOP voters. His numbers in the Republican primary reflected this, as he toiled in the single digits as his campaign seems to have no life and no money (at all).

But now that businessman Herman Cain has had a moment at the top of the GOP race, only to be knocked down by sexual allegations levied against him by multiple women, Gingrich is on the rise. This after Perry was supposed to be the savior of the non-Romney cause, only to have campaign miscues and attacks from the right take him down in late September.

Cain and Perry had some similarities in their respective surges. Both men were well liked at first, which seemed to preceed their surge in the GOP primary, and they built those good feelings into a lead. But it also lead to their downfall — as Cain and Perry saw a dip in their favorability rating, they started to plummet.

With Gingrich, things are different. Cain was unknown to voters nationally, and Perry only slightly more so. That enabled them to make a good first impression with GOP voters. But as the GOP candidates started to surface at the beginning of 2011, Gingrich’s favorability wasn’t high for very long. Gallup showed that as summertime hit, Gingrich was really suffering with Republican voters only a few months into the campaign, a trend with PPP and others confirmed.

But Gallup now shows Gingrich recovering as Cain fades, actually outpacing the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO at the moment. PPP’s latest national poll shows Gingrich the most popular GOP candidate among general election voters, although that still means only 39 percent see him positively, versus 50 percent who see him in a negative light. ABC’s polling of GOP primary showed a massive Gingrich comeback with the party faithful, moving to 57 percent favorable against 23 percent unfavorable.

“Gingrich finds himself at nearly the identical level of popularity he had among Republicans last spring, when he had a 58-23 favorable-unfavorable rating,” wrote ABC’s pollster Gary Langer in his analysis of the numbers. “Unfavorable views of Gingrich exceeded his favorable scores consistently in ABC/Post polling from 1995 to 1998, during his tenure as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. His unfavorable rating reached 59 percent in 1997, and never dropped below 43 percent, same as it is today.”

Many pundits have been furiously pointing that during this primary season, GOP voters are trying out every candidate and then tossing them aside, likely leading to a Romney candidacy when all is said and done. But what’s left out is that Newt Gingrich is a well known commodity among Republicans. They had previously made a judgement about his Presidential campaign, and it wasn’t positive. Yet now that most of the other possibilities have been considered, Republicans voters have now turned to back to a previous applicant, even though it was a clear rejection the first time around.

Yes, there’s anti-Romney fervor, but the Gingrich rise has really made clear the extreme nature of it: Republican voters are willing to try anything, maybe even twice.

Newt Gingrich Favorability, Nationwide

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