Newt Gingrich Threatens GOP’s Chance to Nab Independents
Why, you may ask, is the meteoric rise of Newt Gingrich giving so many in the Republican establishment a bit of holiday-season indigestion?
Look no further than party leaders’ worries about the shaky Gingrich relationship with a category of Americans who may matter more than any other in the 2012 election: independent voters.
While the coming presidential primary season has visions of dueling Democrats and Republicans dancing in our heads, the fastest-growing voter category in the country is the group of voters who count themselves as none of the above. As disdain for the two main parties grows, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that record numbers of Americans are registering as independent voters.
It is also the fastest-growing category in the states likeliest to decide next year’s presidential election. A new study of voter registration by the Third Way, an organization that promotes the ideas of moderate Democrats, finds that in the eight presidential battleground states where voters register by party, the number of independent voters has risen since 2008, while the number of those registering as either Democrat or Republican has dropped.
In those states—Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Pennsylvania—the number of registered independents rose by 3.4%, those registered as Democrats dropped 5.4% and those registered as Republicans fell by 3.1%. That trend line is an important opening for the GOP. Indeed, Third Way analysts frame the picture as one that ought to worry Democrats.
Enter Mr. Gingrich. For now, at least, he doesn’t go over particularly well with that growing bloc of independent voters, and does decidedly worse among them than does his main opponent for the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll completed just last week, Mr. Romney edges out President Barack Obama among independent voters, 41% to 39%, in a hypothetical matchup. Independents in the survey preferred Mr. Obama to Mr. Gingrich, 50% to 28%.
In other words, there is a 24-point swing against Republicans among independents when the hypothetical nominee is Mr. Gingrich rather than Mr. Romney. That’s why, overall, Mr. Romney runs almost even with the president in the poll, while Mr. Gingrich loses to him badly.