It's a two man race between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich ... at least for now
(Romney: Phelan Ebenhack/Reuters, Gingrich: Chris Keane/Reuters)
According to a
new Gallup survey, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are the only two potential GOP candidates that a majority of Republicans find acceptable. The basic numbers:
As you can see, Newt Gingrich is by a wide margin seen as the most acceptable candidate. His "net acceptable" rating is +28, slightly more than double Mitt Romney's +13 rating.
These numbers are interesting in part because they illustrate why a candidate like Rick Perry has a much better chance of winning the nomination than Ron Paul, even though Paul is outpolling Perry by a wide margin in Iowa and New Hampshire. Paul enjoys strong support from a relatively small part of the Republican coalition, but also has strong opposition from a large part of the coalition. As a result, his net acceptability rating is -28.
Rick Perry, meanwhile, has a far less enthusiastic base of support, but is much closer to being seen as acceptable to most Republicans with a net rating of -11. That being said, because Paul occupies a unique space in the GOP field, he'll likely end up with more delegates than Perry. It's just that if lightening strikes and Gingrich and Romney both blow up, Perry is in better position to capitalize than Paul.
The numbers are also interesting because Gallup broke them down by subgroup:
As you can see, Romney and Gingrich are in the first two spots within each group; Gingrich leads among conservatives and tea partiers; Romney leads among moderates and liberals as well as non-tea partiers. As Greg Sargent
points out, Gingrich's lead in his base is much, much larger than Romney's lead within his base. That's the basic reason why Gingrich is ahead. The voters who are supposed to be Romney's strength are nearly as enthusiastic about Gingrich as they are about him, while Gingrich's base is much more into their candidate than Romney.
That's a good news/bad news situation for Romney. On the one hand, if Gingrich stumbles without another candidate taking his place (a big if), Romney's in a good position to capitalize. But if he is unable to either put some space between himself and Gingrich within moderates and non-tea partiers or to close the gap among tea partiers and conservatives, the fate of his candidacy will be completely out of his control.
