It’s not just Iowa where the clock is hitting midnight on Newt Gingrich’s Cinderella surge. Gallup’s national tracking poll shows his lead collapsing in half within a matter of days.
According to the latest five-day rolling average of their daily poll on the GOP race, Gingrich now leads second-place rival Mitt Romney by just 4 points, 28-24, with Ron Paul in third place at 10%. But less than two weeks ago, Gingrich held a 9% lead, 31-22. And less than three weeks ago, he hit the highest mark of any candidate yet, racing ahead of the field with support from 37% of respondents versus 23% for Romney.
It doesn’t take a statistician to see that’s a pretty brutal trend. Take a look at Gingrich’s steep slide off his peak in the TPM Polling Average:
