Romney's Fading Popularity

You want to know the biggest reason Mitt Romney hasn't surged at any point in the Republican Presidential race this year? It's because the more GOP primary voters across the country have been exposed to him, the less they've liked him.

There are 13 places PPP has polled the Republican race in October or November where it also did a poll sometime between January and March.  In those places Romney's net favorability has dropped by an average of 15 points over the course of the year.

On average Romney's favorability with primary voters was 54/25 in these 13 places at the begininng of the year. Now it's only 50/35. His problem is partially that his positives have gone down but more than that it's that as his name recognition has increased, most folks moving off the fence have gone into the negative column.

What's most remarkable about the decline in Romney's popularity is how uniform it's been- he's less popular now than he was at the start of the year in all 13 places where there are polls to compare. And in 11 out of the 13 places that decline in his net favorability has been at least 14 points- the only places with more modest declines are Maine and North Carolina.

This is why as Donald Trump and Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry and Herman Cain have risen and fallen Romney hasn't seen any increase in his support- GOP voters just simply aren't warming up to him at all- in fact they're going in the other direction.

Here's the full data:

State	Romney in Jan/Feb/Mar	Romney in Oct/Nov	Shift
West Virginia	56/18 (+38)	42/27 (+15)	-23
Pennsylvania	52/25 (+27)	46/39 (+7)	-20
Arizona	62/22 (+40)	56/34 (+22)	-18
Ohio	53/26 (+27)	47/37 (+10)	-17
Nebraska	51/23 (+28)	45/34 (+11)	-17
Iowa	57/26 (+31)	51/36 (+15)	-16
Nevada	70/18 (+52)	63/27 (+36)	-16
Mississippi	48/36 (+12)	40/44 (-4)	-16
National	52/28 (+24)	48/39 (+9)	-15
California	59/22 (+37)	55/33 (+22)	-15
Wisconsin	49/25 (+24)	47/37 (+10)	-14
Maine	47/31 (+16)	51/37 (+14)	-2
North Carolina	50/26 (+24)	53/30 (+23)	-1

Comments

[Obama 2012]

The Obama campaign has to be excited about the prospect of getting to face Newt in 2012 ... I know I am.

These numbers make it look like a real possibility.

[smintheus]

It might be more accurate to say "the more voters dislike him". As you say, his approval rating has been pretty flat. It's his disapproval that's going up.

Nearly every other candidate's disapproval numbers have also been going up, however. Some have approval numbers that rose as well. I think the real story with Romney is not that his disapproval is rising, which would be expected, but that he's not adding any more supporters.

[Mermaiden]

I loathe Willard Romney, because he is insanely PHONY. Thurston Howell III tears down a 12 Million dollar home to build a larger, gosh McMansion for Lovie(Gilligan's Island)and then pretends to be a common man. Yeah, he really is one of the peeps...knows what it's like to live on umemployment funds, food stamps, and the likes?? He is the most annoying, two-faced, forked tongued, liar to run, IMHO. Just despicable.

[Michael Franczak]

The first of the Ohio numbers are off. It (52/36) does not equate to +27.

[Tom Jensen]

Thanks, inverted a couple digits, corrected now.

[FindandSeek]

I've always been an Obama supporter and I thought that Mitt's problem was that he was too liberal for the Republican Party and I kind of felt sorry for him. However, after the story in the Boston Globe that he deleted all the e-mails from his tenure and that first ad buy where he blatantly lied and wasn't even ashamed about it, in addition to his Bain ties--which I'm learning more about every day--and Bain was basically a hostile takeover company, I have concluded he will lose if he is the nominee. In addition, in that Fox News interview he just came off as condescending and overly irritable. It's Fox and you are Republican, if you can't handle that type of interview, how will you handle Ahmadinejad, etc. He just comes off as a Richie-Rich guy with a profound sense of entitlement.

[marie]

don't want obama at all. never did. i am a person whom listens carefully to each runner and more and more i find romney phony. obama cannot be trusted in any way. after all is said and done no doubt newt has it all the way to the white house. this man is so smart. just take time and listen to him. he is great and authenic. as far as his excess baggage goes, come on...look at the folks in the white house with the same problem. newt, newt and newt 2012