New Hampshire has always been former Mass Gov. Mitt Romney’s territory in the GOP primary process. Now that national frontrunner Texas Gov. Rick Perry is in the race, New Hampshire is doubling down….on Romney.
A Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll shows Romney with nearly three times as much support as the next closest GOP contender, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). Romney is ahead of the field with 41 percent of the total, with Paul 14 percent and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman the only other candidate with a surprising 10 percent. Huntsman has run a campaign declaring himself the more moderate and electable choice, railing against some of the more controversial statements of frontrunner Perry on evolution and global warming, and it seems to have paid off in the New England. Perry himself only gets 8 percent of the primary vote in the poll.
Romney also shows surprising strength in some more personality driven questions among New Hampshire Republicans. When asked, “Do you trust Mitt Romney to say what he believes, even if it is unpopular?” 60 percent of GOP voters said yes, versus only 30 percent in the negative. It’s a surprising result because the traditional knock on Romney has been that he’s shifted his positions dramatically from his days as the Governor of Massachusetts in an attempt to market himself to national Republican voters. He also bests Perry when GOPers were asked which of the two candidates they would like to have a beer with by a strong 20 points, and 69 percent think Romney is confortable around “regular people.”
Those numbers certainly reflect an affection for Romney among New Hampshire Republicans, which is a much different group than the national GOP electorate or general election voters. But Gallup also dropped data on Thursday morning that shows more voters than ever are “considering” voting for Romney, by significantly more than Perry or President Obama. “The 62% of voters who are considering voting for Romney is up significantly from the 48% who said so when Gallup asked a similar question in April,” said the Gallup report. “At that time, 54% of registered voters said they would definitely vote for Obama or consider doing so, the same percentage as now.” 53 percent are currently considering voting for Perry in the poll.
Combined with good results in Florida, expect Romney to make a consistent pitch around “electability” in the GOP debate on Thursday night, and going forward over the next few weeks.
The Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll used 400 live telephone interviews with likely GOP primary votes in New Hampshire conducted from September 18th to the 20th, with a sampling error of 4.9 percent. The Gallup poll used 889 live telephone interviews with registered voters conducted from September 15th to the 18th, with a sampling error of four percent.
