Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that Newt Gingrich has zoomed into a 35%-28% lead over Mitt Romney among Republican voters nationally. Interviews were conducted last night until 9pm local time and so could not reflect any response to the Tampa debate which began at 9pm Eastern except for a very small number of respondents in the western part of the country. Rasmussen’s survey conducted the evening of January 17, six days earlier, a day after the January 16 debate which has generally been considered Gingrich’s best peroformance and before the second South Carolina debate and the South Carolina primary, showed Romney ahead of Gingrich 30%-27%.
The results of these two polls suggest a significant rise for Gingrich, from 27% to 35%, but the 2% drop for Romney is not statistically significant. Neither is Rick Santorum’s rise from 15% to 16% or Ron Paul’s drop from 13% to 10%.
So: a pickup for Newt, but not much of a dropoff for Mitt.
