America Hates Newt
Newt Gingrich has amazingly high unfavorables.
Under the headline “America hates Newt Gingrich,” The Examiner’s Conn Carroll takes a look at the favorable/unfavorable numbers of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich:
Fox News, 1/12-1/14:
Obama, fav/unfav, 51%/46%, +5
Romney, fav/unfav, 45%/38%, +7
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 27%/56%, -29CBS/NYT, 1/12-1/17:
Obama, fav/unfav, 38%/45%, -7
Romney, fav/unfav, 21%/35%, -14
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 17%/49%, -32PPP, 1/13-1/17:
Obama, app/dis, 47%/50%, -3
Romney, fav/unfav, 35%/53%, -18
Gingrich, fav/unfav, 26%/60%, -34
He concludes, “America does not love Romney, but boy do they hate Newt.”
The fact that Gingrich is not viewed favorably by most Americans doesn’t surprise me. It’s why I never expected him to actually run for president, much less emerge as the last remaining alternative to Romney.
What’s actually more interesting here is the wide disparity between the results of the three surveys, all taken at essentially the same time. Obama’s favorables range from 38 to 51? Romney’s from 21 to 45? That doesn’t exactly make me confident in the usefulness of these numbers.
The Fox poll was conducted by telephone with 906 registered voters. CBS/NYT is a hodgepodge of 1154 voters, 1021 of whom are registered, 430 Republican primary voters, 367 Democratic primary voters, and 302 registered Republicans; presumably, it was also a telephone survey. PPP “surveyed 700 American voters” using “automated telephone interviews.” So, they’re all somewhat different in terms of methodology.
It’s interesting that the numbers for Romney and Obama vary so much across the three polls, yet Gingrich’s are relatively consistent. He’s about as well-liked as Palin and repeated exposure to him is likely to make him even more unlikeable except to his die-hard fans like Chuck Norris.
@James Joyner:
Nate Silver had a post on favorability ratings yesterday and this paragraph gives an explanation and a recommendation:
Newt = Palin and Palin = Newt.
To put this simple.
You reap what you sow.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
etc.
You were saying?
@Eric Florack: America still hates Newt. Republicans on the other hand….
See, there’s the problem you have… you’ve misidentified the situation, on two levels.
First, as has been discussed here… most Americans identify themselves as conservative.
Secondly, the exit polls are showing even the majority of independents went for Gingrich.
Any questions, class?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…yes, please push the totally ridiculous idea that Newt Gingrich could actually beat the President in November…
Well, let’s ask the actual voters, shall we?
Says the New York Times on the point:
]If you’d care for the raw data, here you are.
Republican Primary voters in South Carolina are not the same thing as all the voters throughout the nation who will come to the polls on November 6th, 2012…you do realize that, right? On second thought, maybe you don’t…
Amoment to respond to Eric. . .
Riddle me this Batman; If we were to take the claim “most Americans identify themselves as conservative” at face value, why oh great thinker of the ages does a “Communist jihadist anti Americain Mooooooooslin” win the 2008 election of this here Great Republic?
hmmmm.
Well it might be that a portion of the public may or may not understand what the term Conservative or conservative actualy entail. Well lets just take at face value that it is true, but then we stumble intothe age old :No true Scotsman trap. How could a (C)conservative vote for Obama/Clinton/Carter/McCain/Romney? well no “true” (C)conservative ever would!! It seems then the number of Conservertives tends to dwindle down to a much smaller number, much, much smaller number.
My granny identfies as conserative Irish Catholic, big Union supporter and only stray’d off the ‘ol Democrat farm once to vote for Ike. Wouldn’t stop talkin about how she suspected G.W. Bush was retarded(her word not mine, she was from a different time and such). But not what i’d call Newt’s or the Republican party base.
But I guess the meaning of (C)conservative is allways ashiftin and achangin.
all the “Real Conservatives(tm)” are hangin out at FreeRepublic anyways, they told me so.
@Eric Florack: I’m not sure why you think South Carolina Republican primary voters voting the way the polls predicted they would days before the post was written is evidence against the post. That more Republican primary voters in a very conservative state preferred Gingrich over Romney hardly tells us anything about his appeal to Americans as a whole.
@Eric Florack: Also don’t forget that if Gingrich becomes the Republican nominee, there is a sizable population of people who will crawl across broken glass to vote against him.
Gingrich isn’t liked.
Because it runs directly afoul of the conventional wisdom that you base the post on.
Quite possibly. Then again, that would be true of any Republican candidate, wouldn’t it? Perhaps you don’t remember such threats being leveled against Ronald Reagan? I do. I was there.
Because one presented with a choice of John McCain, the GOP rank and file sat on its hands.
Of course. Then again, South Carolina didn’t turn into what the conventional wisdom held that would, did it? If I were you I wouldn’t be too dependent on conventional wisdom in this race. Particularly, if it comes from people like Establishment GOP consultants for example.
And if I were you, I wouldn’t be too dependent on your fantasies, like comparing Reagan to Gingrich…Newt is a guaranteed loser in November…