It’s clear that the negative attacks on Gingrich have been the major difference maker over the last week. His net favorability has declined 13 points from +23 (57/34) to only +10 (50/40) in just five days. Romney has pretty much stayed in place. At the beginning of the week he was at +31 (61/30) and now he’s at +33 (64/31)…
56% of likely voters said they watched Thursday night’s debate, and they support Romney 41-35. This is a major departure from what we’ve found in past polling among debate watchers, who tended to favor Gingrich by large margins. These numbers confirm the conventional wisdom that Thursday night was a rough one for Newt.
Voters in South Carolina who were most concerned about electability voted for Newt, and our first post-South Carolina Florida poll showed equal numbers of voters seeing Gingrich and Romney as the candidate with the best chance of defeating Barack Obama. Those numbers have shifted in a major way over the last five days with 50% now seeing Romney as most electable to only 23% for Gingrich. Whether it’s the attacks on Newt or a slew of polls released this week that showed Romney’s competitive in Florida and Gingrich is not, he lost a lot of ground on that front.
