Gingrich up big in Florida and Montana

Newt Gingrich's momentum is continuing to build, and he now leads Mitt Romney by over 25 points in both Florida and Montana.

In Florida Gingrich is at 47% to 17% for Romney, 15% for Herman Cain, 5% for Ron Paul, 4% for Michele Bachmann, 3% for Jon Huntsman, 2% for Rick Perry, 1% for Rick Santorum, and 0% for Gary Johnson.


In Montana Gingrich is at 37% to 12% for Paul, 11% for Romney, 10% for Bachmann and Cain, 5% for Perry, 3% for Huntsman, and 1% for Johnson and Santorum.

These two states really exemplify one of the key emerging trends in the Republican race- Gingrich isn't just rising, Romney's also falling. His 17% in Florida is down 13 points from 30% when we polled the state in late September. His 11% in Montana is down 11 points from 22% when we polled the state in June. 

In addition to his support for the nomination, Romney's personal popularity is down too. His Florida favorability was +43 (65/22) and it's declined 28 points to +15 (51/36).  He's dropped in Montana too although it's a more modest change there from +11 (47/36) to only +5 (44/39).

The biggest reason for Newt Gingrich's rise is that he's picked up the voters of Herman Cain and Rick Perry as their campaigns have fallen apart.  But these numbers make it pretty clear he's doing more than that- some of Mitt Romney's '25%' is starting to fall off and move toward Newt as well.

The magnitude of Gingrich's leads now is an indication that he's appealing to every segment of the Republican electorate.  He's up with the Tea Party in both states (53% to 24% for Cain and 7% for Romney in Florida, 42% to 18% for Bachmann, 13% for Cain, 10% for Paul, and 5% for Romney in Montana.) But he's winning over party moderates as well (33% to 22% for Romney in Florida, 31% to 17% for Romney in Montana.) Gingrich's favorability in Florida is 72/21 and in Montana it's 65/23.  You don't attain those kinds of numbers without having a lot of appeal to every faction in the party.

Gingrich's strength in Florida points to one of the aspects of his candidacy that hasn't received a ton of attention yet: his appeal to senior citizens.  Florida has one of the oldest Republican electorates in the country and with voters over 65 he's at 54%.  That sort of support from seniors has become the rule for Newt in our polls.  Here's all our data on that from the last 3 weeks:

State	Newt’s Support from Seniors	Newt’s Overall Support
Florida	54%	47%
Montana	48%	37%
Arizona	37%	28%
Pennsylvania	43%	32%
National	37%	28%
California	44%	33%

Republican primary electorates can skew pretty old so Gingrich's support on that front bodes very well moving forward.

As strong as Gingrich is in these polls there's still evidence he could get stronger. Despite his troubles this week, which voters may not yet be fully aware of, Cain hit double digits on both of these polls.  If his declining support bottoms out after the newest set of revelations, Gingrich will be the beneficiary. 45% of Cain voters in Florida say he is their second choice to only 13% for Romney and in Montana Cain backers prefer Newt over Romney 35-11 as a back up.

With each passing week that sees no rehabilitation in Perry's image it gets harder and harder to see him making a come back. He was at 24% in Florida 2 months ago, now he's at 2%. And Republican voters we find more and more simply do not like Perry. In Florida his favorability is 27/55 and in Montana it's 33/45 even with the party faithful.  This has been the trend on our polls for the last six weeks. Perry has had under water favorability numbers even with GOP primary voters everywhere except Mississippi. Here's the full data:

State	Perry Favorability with GOP voters
Florida	27/55 (-28)
Montana	33/45 (-12)
Arizona	25/58 (-33)
Pennsylvania	30/49 (-19)
California	34/48 (-14)
National	35/49 (-14)
Mississippi	47/33 (+14)
Ohio	35/43 (-8)
North Carolina	39/41 (-2)
Maine	34/47 (-13)
Nevada	25/59 (-34)
Wisconsin	36/40 (-4)

As strong as Gingrich is polling right now it's still important to keep in mind that his support is soft.  In Florida only 44% of his voters are strongly committed to him, with 56% saying they could change their minds.  In Montana only 36% of his voters are strongly committed to him with 64% saying they could change their minds. 

And if something does cause Newt's support to collapse? The next Republican in line is...Mitt Romney. 37% of Gingrich's supporters in Florida say Romney is their second choice to 17% for Cain and 11% for Perry. And 28% of Gingrich's supporters in Montana say Romney is their second choice to 23% for Cain and 10% for Bachmann.  If December is Newt's month to implode as November was for Cain and October was for Perry and August was for Bachmann and May was for Trump then it looks like Romney will finally find himself in first place...at the only time that really matters.

Full results here

Comments

[Joseph]

Where do you get your funding?

[The Interesting Times]

Here's another component of the danger Gingrich poses to Romney: Gingrich isn't just appealing to the traditional deep red states in the South where Bachmann, Perry, and Cain had found most of their support; he's also eating into conventional Romney strongholds in the West.

However, as noted, the half-life of a Republican frontrunner this season is about a month, which would put Gingrich's implosion in late December--just in time for Romney to pick up the pieces.

Timing may prove to be Romney's strongest ally.

[jeff]

Will Mitt's money advantage be a huge underrated factor in his favor? It didn't work in '08 though. All the other non-Romney's collapsed through self-inflicted wounds. Gingrich's number one opponent is going to be Gingrich, not Romney. If he stays disciplined he can pull off a major upset.

P.S. I also think a subconscious anti-Mormon thing is playing out the closer we get to voting. Same thing happened in 2008. A friend of mine down South in Atlanta said she feels the "I'm a Mormon" ad campaign has backfired and is hurting Mitt.

[Obama 2012]

As an Obama supporter this makes me feel like Christmas is coming early!

I think Gingrich is the anti-Romney that can actually stick... and I think Obama will eat Newt for lunch in the general election. Right wing nuts may go for Newt's jackass routine but the general electorate will not.

[pbrower2a]

Newt Gingrich begins like the sort who wins the nomination for "long and faithful service to his Party" but eventually shows why he can't win in the general election. I can now just about see him losing about like Adlai Stevenson.

[George]

Before any Obama supporters start to celebrate early, I have to ask PPP the inevitable question: where is the matchup of Obama with Gingrich and Romney? Did you conduct the survey?