Why Newt is Next in Line
The latest CNN/ORC national survey showing Newt Gingrich surging to a statistical tie with Mitt Romney captures not only the continuing volatility of the GOP's most conservative wing, but cracks in Romney's standing among the party's more managerial and moderate voters.
Most directly, the CNN/ORC poll underscored the persistent inability of the GOP's conservative vanguard to settle on an alternative to Romney. In the poll, Gingrich now leads among Republican voters who identify with the tea party movement, drawing 29 percent. That's an 18 percentage point increase over the 11 percent Gingrich attracted among those voters in CNN's mid-October poll. Gingrich's gain among the tea party contingent is matched almost exactly vote for vote by Herman Cain's loss: he plummeted from 39 percent among them in October to just 22 percent now. Cain's ascent with the tea party came after Texas Gov. Rick Perry suffered a similar collapse with those voters from September through October.
With his surge, Gingrich became the fifth Republican to lead in CNN polls among tea party supporters this year: earlier Mike Huckabee (who ultimately didn't run), Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Cain all held the top spot with those voters in at least one CNN/ORC survey earlier this year. Those polls also showed at various points substantial audiences in that faction for Donald Trump (who didn't run) and Michele Bachmann (who has slipped to just six percent among Tea Party supporters in the latest survey.) The tea party resistance to Romney remains undiminished: he attracts 17 percent among them in the new poll, unchanged since October. He hasn't polled above 18 percent (or below 11 percent) with those Tea Party supporters since June. On that side of the party Romney looks deeply stuck in place.
Among the roughly other half of the potential GOP primary electorate that doesn't identify with the tea party, the CNN/ORC poll shows Romney still leading - but also heading in the wrong direction. Romney draws 29 percent among non-tea party Republicans, well above any other contender, but down from his 35 percent in October. That may be partially because Gingrich more than doubled his support among this wing of the party, from seven percent in October to 16 percent now. Cain slipped with these less ideological voters from 14 percent in October to 8 percent in the new survey. Perry drew an identical 12 percent among both groups.
Gingrich still faces many obstacles to establishing himself as a lasting alternative to Romney, in particular a ramshackle campaign and the lack of a strong executive presence. But this poll shows one potential asset for the voluble former House Speaker: while he appears increasingly acceptable to tea party Republicans, his support isn't confined to them. Romney still holds a solid lead in the survey among Republicans who identify as moderates, but Gingrich is competitive among college-educated and more affluent Republicans that seem the most natural fit for Romney's managerial style and message.
If Gingrich can continue to grow among the party's more centrist voters, and avoid alienating the tea party types (how long will it be before Perry or another conservative aspirant raises Gingrich's previous departures from conservative orthodoxy on issues like climate change?), he could cause Romney more headaches than now appears possible in a Republican race that is itself producing more head-scratching than any since at least 1964, if not 1940.
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