After roughly a month hiatus, CNN returns to the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Aside from providing the clearest evidence yet that Newt Gingrich's fifteen minutes of fame at the head of the class is done, they also provide the first tangible sign that Rick Santorum might be making movement towards being the next legitimate anti-Romney.
At the end of it all, however, CNN has something we have not seen in quite a while: Mitt Romney in the front of the field in both Iowa and New Hampshire. What's more, today's edition of the Gallup tracking poll, for the first time in weeks, does not have Newt Gingrich leading the GOP field.
Let's peruse the actual numbers on the GOP side:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Gingrich 25, Romney 25, Paul 11, Perry 8, Bachmann 5, Santorum 4, Huntsman 1
IOWA (CNN/Time): Romney 25, Paul 22, Santorum 16, Gingrich 14, Perry 11, Bachmann 9, Huntsman 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE (CNN/Time): Romney 44, Paul 17, Gingrich 16, Huntsman 9, Santorum 4, Bachmann 3, Perry 2
There is a minor caveat on that Iowa poll. They did not survey Democrats or Independents. Their rationale, which is a somewhat thin one, is that you have to be a Republican to participate in the caucus. Of course, the problem with using that logic is that turnout in the GOP caucuses are expected to swell, based on the fact that voters can declare their Republican-ness at the caucus. This has been colloquially referred to as "being Republican for a day." If yesterday's PPP tracking poll is any indication, a sizeable chunk of Ron Paul's support is going to come from those transient elements of the GOP caucus.
However, among the things that are beyond qualifications or caveats are the collapse of Newt Gingrich, and the rise of Rick Santorum.
Let's begin with the incredible shrinking Newt. In an apples-to-apples comparison, consider that Gingrich has dropped 19 percent in Iowa in just three weeks (he led the field in early December's CNN poll, with 33 percent of the vote). What's more, he is now staring down the barrel of a fourth-place finish in Iowa. And if Jon Huntsman gets a bounce from being the only GOPer in the field eschewing Iowa in favor of New Hampshire, Gingrich could finish fourth there, as well. After a pair of fourth-place finishes, Gingrich is going to need a resurrection down south, but his polls there have flagged noticeably, as well.
As for Santorum, it is time to start legitimately wondering if he is peaking at the right time. Though his raw numbers in PPP's Iowa tracking poll scarcely budged, Santorum had the best fav/unfav numbers in the field. One got the impression that Santorum's long tenure in the second and third tiers of the GOP field had left Iowa voters thinking that they liked him, but they weren't sure they wanted to burn a vote on him. If polls heading into Iowa start to paint him as a first-tier guy, perhaps the critical mass of Republican voters still unsure about Mitt Romney would find a new place to land (remember that yesterday's PPP tracker had him with net negative favorabilities in the Hawkeye State).
As for Romney, for the first time since Gallup went to the daily tracking poll of the Republican primary, he has moved into a tie with Newt Gingrich. But he still is not coalescing a large swath of support: his support stands at 25 percent, which is roughly where Romney has been since the start of the cycle. Now, Romney did improve his standing in both key-state polls (from 20 percent to 25 percent in Iowa, and from 35 percent to 44 percent in New Hampshire), so he may be cobbling together a winning coalition. In the national numbers, however, he still has not been able to break out of a relatively narrow band of support.