More Polls Showing Mitt Romney Is Ahead

I was about to write about a few new polls but the RightOSphere has a great post about the significance of all these polls that show Mitt Romney ahead over other potential 2012 contenders. Read and enjoy it below: 

Every day America is being informed of the enormous political power Sarah Palin is wielding during this current election cycle and how this means she is the emerging front runner for 2012. Yet despite all this journalistic fervor, the numbers culled from recent polling tell a different story.

 

During the past two days, two national surveys were released showing Palin as the fourth choice among Republican voters, for the 2012 Presidential Nomination. Both PPP and the McClatchy-Marist polls revealed voters place Mitt Romney in the top position. These results are achieved despite the constant news cycle exposure of Palin as the presumed leader of the Tea Party movement, and in the forefront of controversial issues like the Ground Zero Mosque.

 

Romney for his part, has spent the summer flying under the national media radar, focusing his time on endorsing candidates for state offices, often making the rounds locally and then dropping contributions into their campaign coffers. He and Palin have endorsed many of the same candidates, yet Palin – the Media lighting rod – has been garnering all the attention and the lion’s share of the credit.

 

However, this does not seem to have dampened support for Romney among the GOP. This has to be a source of consternation indeed among the Fox Supertars – Palin, Gingrich and Huckabee – considering the amount of expiosure they get from either their own shows or being guests. Throw in the Talk Radio invites each accepts, and the Romney’s durability is an even more impressive.

 

So among the voters who know who they like, Romney holds a narrow lead. But what do the Nation’s Undecided Voters think? Well we don’t know how they would vote, but we do know who they view favorably and unfavorably. Today, PPP posted an article about their findings in surveying Undecided/Swing voters nationwide. Even among this subset, Romney enjoyed higher support, not only over Palin, but other potential 2012 GOP rivals, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee.

From PPP:

None of those folks inspire nearly as strong of feelings with this fall's swing voters as Sarah Palin though. A whooping 65% of swing voters have an unfavorable opinion of her, to only 17% who see her in a positive light. And it's not as if that’s a function of the remaining undecideds strongly disliking Republicans across the board-only 41% have a negative opinion of Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich and that falls to 33% for Mike Huckabee and just 25% for Mitt Romney.

The group of folks who haven't made up their minds yet is 14% Democrats, 21% Republicans, and 65% independents. They're not really sold on the President but they know they don't like Sarah Palin- making the Republican Party the Palin Party, could help push Democratic candidates across the finish line in a lot of this year's close races.

Romney’s unfavorability ratings would be envious with any group surveyed, but with the swing voters, it is of particular note, as these are often late deciders, who tilt an election on way or another. These numbers show most swing voters currently have a favorable view of Romney, a nice card to have tucked away should he decide to run in 2012. 

 

Another interesting trend proved false is the assumption Sarah Palin is the Tea Party’s favorite choice for the 2012 nomination. The M&M poll released Tuesday showed again, Mitt Romney was their top choice. While the sampling size of the poll was small, it nonetheless dovetails with an earlier CNN poll in August, providing similar results. CNN found  that "More than half of all Republicans we questioned consider themselves Tea Party supporters or active members of the Tea Party movement," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Romney tops the list among Tea Party Republicans; Gingrich is next on that list and Palin is in third."

 

The PPP poll of this week also showed Romney the clear favorite among Moderate GOP voters. Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich and Romney split the Conservative wing fairly evenly, with Romney getting the lower end share. However, he was the runaway leader among the Moderate wing of the party.

 

All this information is not cast in stone and there is still a lot of political baseball to be played before the nation begins thinking about selecting a new chief exec. But the support for Gov. Romney, while not garnering headlines and talk radio chatter, is far from butter soft. With strong support from the middle of the Republican Party and an even slice of the Conservative pie, Mitt Romney, through his hard and understated work, is positioning himself to be a very formidable contender, once the midterm elections are over and the Nation begins focusing on a brand new form of executive leadership.