Gallup’s Editor-in-chief Frank Newport appeared on MSNBC to talk about the polling organization’s national tracking poll of the GOP primary race, which is changing rapidly in the last few days of the campaign for South Carolina. Newport said when their new data comes out at 1 pm eastern, “…we’ll see this gap closing more. Romney was up 23 points over Newt Gingrich. Now it will be down about ten points, so clearly things are collapsing.”
The Gallup tracking poll showed a huge lead for Romney after winning the New Hampshire primary and it seemed that he was on the way to locking down the nomination. Now that Newt Gingrich has resurged in South Carolina, and taken the media narrative along with him, Romney is faltering nationally.
“We have seen more movement, more roller coaster kind of effect this year than any other Republican primary in our history of tracking,” Newport said. “I think anything is possible. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility if Romney recovers. We’ll wait and see.”
The Gallup poll still shows a 16 point lead for Romney as of today, but the trend is clearly down. Our TPM Poll Average shows the same trend, incorporating all public surveys.
Here’s the video:
