Among Iowa GOPers, Huntsman's unfavorable rating is triple his positive score (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
Technically speaking, if Jon Hunstman is the adult in the room, doesn't
this mean that Iowa Republican primary voters are, for the most part, a bunch of children?
Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Jon Huntsman?
Favorable: 13
Unfavorable: 40
Not sure: 46
To put that whopping 27 point net unfavorable rating in some perspective, Newt Gingrich is the only other 2012er with a net negative rating to appear on stage with Huntsman at the pre-Ames debate. And Gingrich's net unfavorable rating is just 2 points.
To be sure, nearly half of Iowa Republicans don't yet have an opinion on Huntsman. But unless Huntsman has spent all his time meeting the wrong Republicans, it's hard to imagine his numbers doing anything but getting worse as he gets more well-known. So maybe his best strategy would simply be to never step foot in the state again.
The poll was conducted Aug. 19 to 21, after Hunstman's infamous tweet from Aug. 18 in which he challenged fellow Republicans to call him crazy for accepting evolution and global warming as scientific facts.