In the new NBC/WSJ poll, Mitt (yawn) Romney cleans up in a weak field, but look who comes in second.
Among Republican primary voters, Mr. Romney captured the support of 21% in a broad, nine-candidate field. Mr. Trump was tied for second with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, with 17%. House Speaker Newt Gingrich got 11%, just ahead of former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s 10%. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, considered a strong contender by political handicappers, remains largely unknown, with just 6% support. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota had 5%, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum 3%, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour with just 1%.
Very Serious People in DC just
know that Barbour is a contender. Well, it seems he's a contender like Phil Gramm was. He can raise a boatload of money but in the end he's a regional candidate with retail skills and nothing like what a modern national candidate requires. And Pawlenty? Not exactly catching fire. Still, Very Serious People say he's a Very Serious Candidate.
Of course, presidential primaries are state level contests, and in IA, Bachmann and Huckabee (who likely won't run) will do well, Romney not so much. And others of the early contests will favor the social conservatives over the Very Serious Candidates like T-Paw.
In other polling tidbits, the Republican pollster Bill McInturff warns the country is not prepared for a shutdown:
Bill McInturff, the poll’s Republican co-director, said public opinion is fluid now and is likely to fluctuate dramatically if and when the government shuts down, which would lead to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, to National Parks being shuttered, and some federal services suspending.
“If it happens, it will feel out of the blue,” said Mr. McInturff, who did daily polling for House Speaker Newt Gingrich when the government shut down in 1995 and 1996. “This is a country that is not ready.”
Or,
put another way:
With Congress staring at a possible government shutdown, Republican lawmakers are caught between their tea-party base insisting they hold their ground on deep budget cuts and a broader electorate pressing for compromise, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.
As
Gallup notes today:
The difficulty for House Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders is that rank-and-file Republicans' views on this [budget negotiation] question are starkly different from those of the public at large. The slight majority of Republicans nationwide, 51%, want the people in government who share their views to hold out for a budget they agree with rather than compromise. This compares with 27% of Democrats and 29% of independents who say the same.
And
as we noted earlier today, and as Gallup and NBC/WSJ confirm, a shutdown does not favor Republicans.
Hey, so how about that tea party?
The Journal/NBC poll suggests there are limits to the tea party movement's popularity. In the new survey, 29% felt very positive or somewhat positive about the tea party, the same level of positive feeling registered in January. But 44% felt negatively toward the movement, and the percentage of Americans who feel very negatively jumped six percentage points from January, to 30%.
Some 25% of those polled said they supported the tea party, down from 29% in February and 30% in November. The highest percentage on record, 67%, said they were not supporters.
What's it all mean? The nutcases are running the asylum, with the "hot" candidates being birther Trump and Bachmann. But what good is it to be beloved by the tea party when no one loves the tea party? Just as in the
CNN poll, this represents a low water mark for them.
And as for the seriousness of Trump's candidacy (aka America's Top Birther), see this post from David Nir and PPP earlier this week:
Q: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump?
Favorable: 28
Unfavorable: 46
Not sure: 26
Q: If the candidates for President next year were Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Donald Trump, who would you vote for?
Barack Obama: 47
Donald Trump: 38
Undecided: 14
Hey, Republicans! You want Trump? Bring. It. On. Every mention of him highlights how weak your field is, how nutty your base is, and
how far from the mainstream the GOP is. It really looks like
the Scott Walker effect is everywhere.