Since formally announcing that he would seek the presidency, Newt Gingrich’s support has completely fallen apart among members of his own party, according to a forthcoming NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.
In an early look at that survey published Wednesday afternoon, NBC News said that a plurality of Republicans now have an unfavorable opinion of Gingrich, with 34% viewing the former Speaker of the House unfavorably, compared to 32% who view him favorably. That’s a huge shift from just two months ago when 50% of GOPers liked Gingrich, while only 13% did not.
Further, 48% of all Americans now view Gingrich unfavorably according to the poll, an all time high that topped even his worst marks from his days in Congress, during the push for President Clinton’s impeachment.
Gingrich’s disastrous campaign rollout could hardly have gone worse. In the run up to officially declaring, he flip flop flipped (several times) on Libya. Then out of the gate he panned the GOP’s signature proposal to privatize Medicare, prompting an intense backlash from his own party. A few days later he faced uncomfortable questions about running up a six-figure account at Tiffany’s. Last week things went from bad to worse – with many of his high-level staffers resigning in unison, citing major differences over how the campaign should be run.
Gingrich has promised to forge ahead with his candidacy, though he’ll have a ton of ground to make up given his spiraling poll numbers.
The poll was conducted June 9-13 among 1,000 adults nationwide. It has a margin of error of 3.1%.
