Pity Mitt Romney. After all, when Fox News and Rasmussen have abandoned you, what is left?
While Rick Santorum continues to creep closer to Romney in national GOP primary polling (and Rasmussen desperately continues to make an electability argument for Santorum), Romney's prospects when paired with Barack Obama in a prospective general election battle continue to veer in a direction that Republicans cannot feel too good about.
But, before we get to those decidedly bleak general election numbers for Mitt Romney, let's look at those primary numbers. There are signs that the Gallup tracker will continue to tighten (if Nate Silver is dead on), and as I noted yesterday, PPP took it a step further, projecting a Santorum lead in the primary nationally.
For today, however, the polls amount to a calm before the storm, though the Santorum surge at the statewide level are pretty darned clear:
NATIONAL (Fox News): Romney 33, Santorum 23, Gingrich 22, Paul 15
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 34, Santorum 22, Gingrich 18, Paul 10
GEORGIA (Landmark/Rosetta Stone--R): Gingrich 35, Santorum 26, Romney 16, Paul 5
TENNESSEE (American Research Group): Santorum 34, Romney 27, Gingrich 16, Paul 13
On the general election front, there are warning signs aplenty for Team Romney, particularly as it relates to the electability theme that has provided the foundation for much of his campaign's rationale:
NATIONAL (Fox News): Obama d. Romney (47-42); Obama d. Paul (48-38); Obama d. Santorum (50-38); Obama d. Gingrich (51-38)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen): Obama d. Santorum (46-42); Obama d. Romney (50-40)
FLORIDA (Rasmussen): Obama d. Santorum (47-46); Obama d. Romney (47-44)
There are some real fascinating data points in that Fox News survey, which I will explore after the jump.
Three interesting takeaways from the Fox News Poll:
Fox News, justifiably, gets criticized as a media outlet for their rather obvious rooting interest in bolstering the right wing while diminishing the left. However, they did go to a Democratic/Republican polling consortium last year (something NBC has long done in their national polling), leading to numbers that have tended to stay on the fairway a little more than previous Fox News endeavors (remember, in late 2010, they actually went with Rasmussen subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research).
Thus, we can take a look at their polling today, and dig underneath the toplines for a couple of interesting McNuggets of information.
1. They catch a Santorum surge, but it hasn't fully been realized yet.
Do NOT read into the ten-point advantage of Mitt Romney over Rick Santorum in the national GOP primary as a sign that Mittens is weathering the storm generated by the Santorum trifecta on Tuesday night.
The simple fact of the matter is that the bulk of the interviews were conducted on Monday and Tuesday, before Romney had the shittiest possible Tuesday night at the polls. In those pre-trifecta interviews, Romney had an enormous 35-17 lead over Santorum (Gingrich actually ran second, at 26 percent). Of the interviews collected on Wednesday and Thursday, meanwhile, Santorum and Romney deadlocked at 30 percent, with Gingrich (16 percent) fighting off Ron Paul (15 percent) for third place.
That presents two real causes for concern for Mitt Romney. Not only did the famously fickle GOP electorate again fall in love with someone NOT named Mitt Romney, but note how big a dive was taken by Newt Gingrich. Gingrich fell 10 points after Tuesday, which could either be a blip, or a legitimate sign that the "not-Mitt" vote has consolidated behind one candidate.
2. Barack Obama is clearly on the rebound.
Add Fox News to the list of pollsters that have the president polling as well or better than he has since making the Osama bin Laden announcement last Spring. Barack Obama's lead over Mitt Romney (47-42) is the largest lead he has had over Romney in Fox News polling since last July. What's more, it is a seven-point swing from November, when Mitt Romney held a two-point advantage.
What's more, the president is back in positive territory on job approval in the FNC poll (48/45) for the first time since June.
One other data point hints that this might be propelled by the "looking good by comparison" argument I've made frequently here on the Wrap. There is still a pretty high level of pessimism on the economy: 42% of voters said the worst was past, while 48% felt the worst was yet to come. That's actually more pessimistic than this time last year, when voters were evenly split (48/48) on that question.
3. The Bush name is still toxic.
Despite the impracticalities of doing so, there have been persistent whispers that the GOP faithful might want a fresh face to jump in at the 11th hour and resurrect the chances for the Republican Party in the 2012 presidential election. Perhaps with that in mind, Fox News decided to test Barack Obama against a popular former governor of a key swing state: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
How did Jeb do? He did worse than Newt Gingrich. Jeb Bush, according to the FNC poll, would lose to Barack Obama by a 50-36 margin.
The bottom line--despite having a biography and political skills that any of the current candidates in the field would gladly kill for, a four-letter surname is enough to derail any hopes of seeking the presidency for Jeb Bush.