Can Newt win?
That’s the question political pundits and pollsters have been pondering this week, as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s numbers climbed in the Republican presidential primary polls, lifting him from a long shot at the back of the pack to a serious contender in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and perhaps even the New Hampshire primary.
Polls show Gingrich at the head of the pack in Iowa and within a couple of percentage points of front-runner Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, in New Hampshire, where the first-in-the-nation primary will be held Jan. 10.
“I’m a little skeptical it’s that close,” University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala told The Washington Examiner. “But the general direction that Gingrich is moving into second place? I buy that.”
Gingrich’s rise has so far followed a pattern all too familiar in the GOP presidential race. Voters, reluctant to fully embrace Romney, who they view as too moderate, have instead turned in succession to the candidates with lower poll numbers but greater conservative appeal, from Rep. Michele Bachmann in August to Texas Gov. Rick Perry to businessman Herman Cain.
None of those candidates, however, has been able to retain that support. Bachmann and Perry quickly dropped in the polls and Cain’s support is now fading because of allegations of sexual harassment and his weak grasp of foreign policy matters.
Gingrich is now defending himself from an onslaught of negative media revelations, including The Washington Examiner’s report that Gingrich was paid by the drug industry in 2003 to push conservative lawmakers to back a new federal entitlement, Medicare Part D. Bloomberg News also revealed that Gingrich’s firm earned $1.6 million as a consultant for Freddie Mac, the financially troubled government-sponsored mortgage giant that most conservative Republicans want to dismantle.
Those revelations, combined with Gingrich’s messy private life, have many wondering whether he’ll remain at the top of the polls or suffer the same fate as Perry, Bachmann and Cain.
“I think you have to distinguish Gingrich from some of the other flavor-of-the-month candidates,” said Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, a polling firm. “The American people have known Newt Gingrich for a long time and they have known negative things about him for a long time.”
Faucheux said voters view Gingrich as a more legitimate candidate than Cain or Bachmann, who he said represented for voters a way to protest the lack of a strong conservative candidate. If Gingrich can retain his newfound support over the next few weeks “then his rise in the polls was well-timed and it might mean he is the last guy with a shot of moving up and gaining momentum before Iowa,” Faucheux said.
Democratic political strategist Chris Hahn said Gingrich could place first or second in both Iowa and New Hampshire, though he would face bigger obstacles in South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary. Hahn said Southern voters will likely find Gingrich far less appealing because of his history of marital infidelity and divorce, not to mention the Freddie Mac payments.
“By the time we get to South Carolina, there will have been enough negative drippings from the Romney camp to try to knock him out,” Hahn said. “It might open the door to a resurgence from Perry. But I doubt it.”
