|
Twenty-six percent of likely Republican
voters support the former House Speaker as the party's nominee,
up 16 points since early November, according to the Quinnipiac
University poll released Tuesday. He was followed by Romney,
the former Massachusetts governor, with 22 percent of support,
down one point from the previous poll.
Gingrich also enjoys a comfortable edge over Romney in hypothetical
head-to-head match-up, 49 percent to 39 percent.
This was the latest survey that demonstrated Gingrich's surge
in recent weeks. A Gallup poll released Monday showed that
Gingrich and Romney are neck-in-neck in the race for GOP nomination.
Among Republican registered voters, Gingrich is the choice
of 22 percent and Romney at 21 percent.
In a CNN-ORC poll released Monday, Ginrich leads the Republican
field with 24 percent of support, followed by Romney with
20 percent.
Gingrich's rise was in large part attributed to his good
performances in GOP presidential debates, in which he successfully
portrayed himself as serene, mature and knowledgeable. That's
also one of the selling points on his campaign trail.
"If you stop and ask yourself: it's October of 2012,
President Obama is spending one billion dollars beating up
the Republican candidate and you get to the debates, who do
you want to have debate Obama to draw clarity between the
various lies they will be telling and the truth," the
former speaker told a crowd Monday in New Hampshire. "I
think most people end up thinking I'm probably a better debater
than my friends are."
Gingrich, who was almost left dead by pundits this summer
after the exodus of his campaign staff, surged to the top-tier
of the GOP field after businessman Herman Cain collapsed amid
sexual harassment allegations, and is now seen as the new "anybody-but- Romney" candidate.
The Quinnipiac University poll also showed Cain's continuous
decline triggered by the sexual scandal and worsened by his
gaffes in recent primary debates and interviews. He fell from
30 percent early this month to only 14 percent in the latest
poll.
Texas Governor Rick Perry and House Representative Ron Paul
each took 6 percent, followed by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
at 4 percent. Former ambassador to China Jon Huntsman and
former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania took 2 percent
each
|
