Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney may be leading in the Florida polls by double digits, but there is still a contest for GOP voter support nationally — and in this week’s Economist/YouGov Poll (Week of 1/28/2012), two candidates come within a ten point range of Mitt Romney.
Among Republican primary voters, Romney has the support of 29%. The other candidates with at least 20% of support among GOP voters are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 23% and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum with 20%. Santorum is running well behind Romney and Gingrich in Florida, but has gained dramatically among national GOP voters in the last week. This is Santorum’s strongest performance yet in Economist/YouGov polls.
In recent weeks, Romney has had a hard time establishing himself as the top GOP choice nationally. Romney tends to fare poorly with GOP voters who identify with the Tea Party.
One of Romney’s weaknesses is that he is running for the nomination of a conservative party, and many of those voters /underlinedon’t think Romney is a conservative. In fact, more than half of GOP voters describe Romney as a moderate.
However, Romney is perceived as the Republican candidate most likely to win the nomination — 56% of all Republican primary voters think he will, while only 23% believe that Gingrich will be the nominee.
Democrats think Romney will be the eventual GOP nominee, too.
Economist/YouGov poll archives can found here.
Photo source: Press Association
