WASHINGTON First it was Donald Trump. Then Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain all took turns surging to first or second place in national polls on the Republican presidential contest, alongside Mitt Romney. Now it's Newt Gingrich's turn, as two new national polls show Gingrich rising to the top.
A survey of Republicans conducted by CNN and ORC International shows Gingrich supporters increasing from 8 percent in mid-October to 22 percent over the weekend, just 2 points behind Romney supporters (at 24 percent, although the small gap between the two is not statistically significant). Meanwhile, Cain's support in the CNN polls has fallen 11 points (from 25 to 14 percent).
A new automated telephone poll of likely Republican primary voters from the Democratic-affiliated firm similarly shows Gingrich gaining 13 points (from 15 to 28 percent), but its results for Cain and Romney are different. P shows a smaller decline for Cain (from 30 to 25 percent) and puts Romney well behind (at 18 percent).
The differences in candidate rankings across these and other surveys likely results from variations in the way pollsters go about choosing Republicans to interview and measuring their national vote preferences. Since this exercise is somewhat artificial parties select their nominees through a series of primary elections and party caucuses featuring highly variable turnout rates, rather than a single national primary the precise level of support for any candidate is less important than consistent trends across different polls.
On that score, the new CNN and P polls confirm what seven other national surveys updated in November have shown: Support for Gingrich is rising fast. A Marist/McClatchy survey released last week showed his support rising 13 percentage points since September (from 6 to 19 percent). Six more national surveys conducted earlier in November show support for the former House speaker increasing by between 4 and 9 percentage points since earlier in the fall.
The nine November polls differ most in the trends they reveal in support for businessman Herman Cain, but that is to be expected since only four were fielded all or in part after Sharon Bialek came forward to make sexual harassment allegations against Cain. The four most recent surveys all find Cain's support declining.
The HuffPost Pollster trend chart, which combines all available public polls, shows the sharp increase in support for Gingrich along with the more modest downturn for Cain.
Newton Leroy Gingrich entered Washington politics as a Georgia congressman in 1979 and exited in 1999 after resigning his position as Speaker of the House.Send Corrections
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