From a polling perspective, this was a pretty crappy day to be Newt Gingrich, all in all. On the GOP primary front, all four data points today (a relatively light day, obviously) took a sledgehammer to the notion of Gingrich as the ascendant frontrunner.
The Gallup tracking poll found Gingrich's fortunes plummeting further than before, paring a 15-point advantage just a few short days ago down to a mere 5-point edge. And, right on schedule, Rasmussen (who claimed a double-digit deficit for Newtie yesterday when paired with Obama) says that Gingrich isn't even the leader in Iowa anymore. Add to that a new Suffolk poll showing that Mitt Romney still has a commanding lead in New Hampshire, and it all adds up to a decent pile of suck for the former Speaker of the House.
So, here is the question: after a half-dozen flirtations with the anti-Romney, is the GOP really going to settle for Mr. Twenty-Something Percent after all?
We'll see. Until then, here are the numbers:
NATIONAL (Gallup): Gingrich 29, Romney 24, Paul 10, Bachmann 7, Perry 5, Santorum 4, Huntsman 2
IOWA (Rasmussen): Romney 23, Gingrich 20, Paul 18, Perry 10, Bachmann 9, Santorum 6, Huntsman 5
NEW HAMPSHIRE (ARG): Romney 35, Paul 21, Gingrich 16, Huntsman 13, Bachmann 4, Perry 2, Santorum 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE (Suffolk): Romney 38, Gingrich 20, Huntsman 13, Paul 8, Bachmann 3, Cain 2, Roemer 2, Santorum 2, Johnson 1, Perry 1
Meanwhile, we have a single offering on the general election front, and that one comes with a bit of a caveat:
IOWA (Univ. of Iowa): Romney d. Obama (43-42); Gingrich d. Obama (46-43)
Before we delve into Newt's not-so-happy day, let's quickly dispense with the Iowa poll. Digging into the numbers a little bit, we see a cause for skepticism. When the Obama-Gingrich numbers are broken down by party, we see that Obama and Gingrich both perform equally well (88-5/88-6) with their own parties, and the president actually has the edge over Gingrich with independents by 1.4% among independents. Yet, somehow, when it all gets added up, Gingrich pushes out to a three-point lead overall. The only way that works is if there are quite a few more Republicans than Democrats in the field.
Looking at exit polls, that seems pretty unlikely. In 2010, the split between the three entities was pretty even (35 I, 34 R, 31 D), and that was as bad a year for Democrats as you can get. This sample clearly assumes a turnout similar to 2010, which seems fairly unrealistic. It would be interesting to see other pollsters do some general election trial heats during their time in Iowa over the next few weeks, for comparison purposes. I wouldn't be surprised to see the GOPers doing fairly well in an Obama trial heat in Iowa right now. They're sucking up 99.9% of the oxygen. But I don't know if I buy a three percent Gingrich lead over the president in a state he carried by nine percent over John McCain.
As for the primary elections data: as you can see for yourself, it is not pretty for team Newt today. Twitter was positively buzzing today with that Rasmussen poll, and Romney surged on Intrade as a result. However, for my money, the Gallup tracker is the bigger data point, because it has shown a consistent drop for Gingrich over the past week. Romney has not necessarily been the beneficiary, however, as his numbers have languished between 22-25 percent throughout. It seems, at least to this point, that Newt's support has gone ... well... nowhere. No one is the clear beneficiary, which is probably good news for him. But the lack of altitude for Romney won't matter nearly as much if Gingrich keeps hemmorhaging support.