URBANDALE, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is closing in on front-runner Newt Gingrich in Iowa and gaining traction among voters in New Hampshire, a development that could significantly influence the outcome of the nation’s early primary contests.
Paul cut Gingrich’s lead in Iowa from 9 percentage points to just 1 point, a statistical tie, Public Policy Polling found. In New Hampshire, Paul moved to within 2 percentage points of Gingrich and both now lag behind only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Ramussen Reports poll shows.
“Ron Paul has legs,” Iowa State University political science professor Steffen Schmidt said.
Schmidt contends that the media has been ignoring Paul’s popular candidacy in Iowa and that Paul, whose libertarian platform includes legalizing marijuana, abolishing the Federal Reserve and letting Israel fend for itself, will finish in the top three when Iowans cast the first votes of the presidential campaign on Jan. 3.
Support for Gingrich, the former House speaker who led the 1994 Republican takeover of the House, has been surging in recent weeks, though attacks on him by Romney and Paul have started to take a toll on his standing.
Paul launched an aggressive advertising campaign against Gingrich, depicting him as “a counterfeit conservative” who once backed a health insurance mandate similar to President Obama’s, denounced a Republican plan to reform entitlement spending and filmed a commercial with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., about combating climate change.
“Those ads directed at Gingrich are really brutal,” Schmidt said. “I do think Ron Paul has damaged a lot of Gingrich’s buzz that he had here because a lot of the voters who had been supporting Gingrich didn’t really know who he is. They had forgotten a lot of the nasty stuff Gingrich is associated with, and Ron Paul has educated them.”
In Paul’s suburban Des Moines campaign office on Tuesday, a dozen staffers and volunteers worked the phones and zipped in and out of the building with campaign signs and fliers.
Deputy Campaign Manager Dimitri Kesari said Paul’s message is resonating with Iowans who have tired of candidates waffling on important conservative issues.
“In 30 years, Ron Paul has not changed on his positions,” Kesari told The Washington Examiner. “He doesn’t flip-flop on the issues. He’s the only candidate who has been consistent on everything.”
In Urbandale, home of Gingrich’s Iowa campaign headquarters, a handful of people were working the phones Tuesday.
Gingrich spokeswoman Katie Koberg had no comment on the latest poll numbers, but said Gingrich plans to campaign intensely in Iowa in the coming days.
“We are out at central committee meetings and caucus trainings and making sure that the candidate gets out there and shakes hands with as many Iowans as we can get him to shake hands with,” Koberg said.
