Well, that Newt Gingrich surge was fun, wasn't it?
The bombastic former House speaker may still manage to pound Mitt Romney on his way to an upset in the GOP presidential nominating fight, but there is a little bit of statistical evidence on this Wednesday to suggest that Mitt Romney might be weathering the Newt assault.
The proof of the pudding is in both national polling and Florida polling of the Republican presidential sweepstakes:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Gingrich 31, Romney 28, Paul 12, Santorum 12, "Others" 3
NATIONAL (YouGov/Economist): Romney 31, Gingrich 29, Paul 13, Santorum 11
FLORIDA (American Research Group): Romney 41, Gingrich 34, Santorum 9, Paul 7
FLORIDA (CNN/Time/Opinion Research): Romney 36, Gingrich 34, Santorum 11, Paul 9
FLORIDA (Quinnipiac): Romney 36, Gingrich 34, Santorum 13, Paul 10
MINNESOTA (PPP): Gingrich 36, Romney 18, Santorum 17, Paul 13
NEVADA (Winning Our Future PAC): Romney 33, Gingrich 31, Paul 8, Santorum 7
We also get a few state-specific general election polls today. Clearly, pollsters are still banking on a Mitt Romney nomination, since two of the polls did not bother apparently with Obama-Gingrich trial heats:
NATIONAL (Rasmussen): Obama d. Romney (46-43); Obama d. Gingrich (48-41); Obama d. Santorum (48-40); Obama d. Paul (47-37)
NATIONAL (YouGov/Economist): Obama d. Romney (47-41); Obama d. Paul (47-40); Obama d. Gingrich (49-39); Obama d. Santorum (49-39)
NEW YORK (NY1/YNN/Marist): Obama d. Romney (58-35); Obama d. Santorum (61-33); Obama d. Gingrich (63-31); Obama d. Paul (62-28)
NORTH CAROLINA (Civitas/National Research--R): Romney d. Obama (48-39)
WISCONSIN (Marquette Law School): Obama d. Romney (48-40)
Is this the end of Newt-mentum, or is there still a reasonable prospect for a protracted primary fight? Head past the jump for some thoughts.
Today is a day for some seriously conflicting evidence. If you check under the hood of the Quinnipiac poll, it shows that Mitt Romney had a solid lead in the days before the South Carolina primary, but Newt Gingrich claimed a six-point lead in Florida in the days following Saturday's big Newt victory. That would, on the surface, confirm all the early week polls that gave Newt the edge in the Sunshine State.
But the CNN poll today heads off on a different vector. As CNN noted, Gingrich had a lead in their sampling taken before Monday's debate. After the Monday debate, however, Romney claimed a nine-point lead in the two days that were sampled since then.
Also, it was notable that Romney seemed to halt Gingrich's momentum in the Gallup tracking poll, as well. Remember, for every day over the past week, Romney has been essentially been in free fall, while Gingrich has been steadily bumping up by two-to-three points per day. The fact that Gingrich held steady from yesterday's tracker, and the recovery of a single point by Romney, would lead my "B+ in Algebra II math skills" to conclude that Romney led in last night's sample.
However, there are a couple clouds still on the horizon. The assumption has long been that if Mitt could survive Florida, he'd likely be golden, given that he would be the clear favorite in every contest after that until Super Tuesday. The states just matched up nicely for him, it seemed. But PPP's poll today made him a marked underdog in the Minnesota caucuses coming up in February, and a new poll in Nevada (albeit one paid for by Sheldon Adelson's pro-Gingrich superPAC) hinted that Romney, who won the Nevada caucuses in 2008 with more than 50 percent of the vote, is only up two on Gingrich in the Silver State.
On the general election front, Barack Obama looks strong in all of today's data, save for one North Carolina poll conducted by a GOP pollster. This includes new numbers out of Wisconsin, which contradicted the reports of a GOP pollster last week who claimed that Mitt Romney would be up by a point over Barack Obama in the Badger State, if the election were held today. Obama is also locking down New York, to the surprise of absolutely no one.