When PPP polled New Hampshire in April Michele Bachmann was stuck at 4%. She's gained 14 points over the last three months and now finds herself within single digits of Mitt Romney. Romney continues to lead the way in the state with 25% to 18% for Bachmann, 11% for Sarah Palin, 9% for Ron Paul, 7% for Rick Perry and Herman Cain, 6% for Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty, and 4% for Newt Gingrich. ...
Romney's starting to show some signs of weakness in New Hampshire. His support is down 12 points from 37% on the iteration of our April poll...
OK, so it's not the Apocalypse yet, but who else is there? I'm not surprised Romney's support is fading. He's such a phony that it's hard to believe even Republicans would go for him. (Of course, that's not actually the problem. The problem is that his health care reform plan has now become "Obamacare.")
And look who else is in double-digits: Sarah Palin. But Palin is unlikely to run - and give up all of that loot? no way! - and all of her fans are likely to switch to Bachmann. (Can you believe there are that many loons in America?)
Leaving aside the gut-wrenching implications for my country, this poll also shows other interesting results:
Usually a 12 point drop would qualify you as the biggest loser in the poll but Romney's still in first place so that designation probably deserves to go to Gingrich, who's at 4% and in 9th place now after being at 14% and tied for 2nd place on our previous poll. He's the only candidate besides Romney who's seen a double digit drop in his net favorability. It was +9 at 45/36 in April and it's now gone down 27 points to -18 at 33/51, making him the least popular out of 17 people we polled on.
Another big loser on this poll is Tim Pawlenty. His name recognition has sky rocketed from 48% to 72% with New Hampshire primary voters over the last three months. But his horse race support has only gone from 5% to 6%.
So the Gingrich campaign has been a complete train-wreck, right from the start. I don't think I've ever seen a campaign crash and burn so quickly. Hey, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, huh?
And Pawlenty's name recognition has surged, but when people get to know him, they apparently don't like him. That's never a good sign for a candidate. Really, if Pawlenty could run using just his campaign ads, without voters ever seeing or hearing the guy himself, he might have a chance. But the man in person is just hilarious - inadvertently - if you've come to expect anything like the video clips.
It's hard to really identify any 'winners' on this poll other than Bachmann.
But there are sure plenty of losers, including the entire American people. Really, this is the worst bunch of lunatics I've ever seen run for public office - any public office. George W. Bush might even look good compared to most of them.
As far as I can tell, the only one who isn't completely crazy is Jon Huntsman, and he's sitting at a whopping 6% (PPP notes that it's "better than he's done anywhere else we've polled"). Of course, even Huntsman would have to act crazy in order to keep the support of the Republican base. For better or worse, every candidate runs with party backing.
What depresses me is that the Republicans don't seem to be losing support among ordinary Americans. With extremists like this leading them, why not? Has all of America gone completely batshit crazy? What has happened to us?
I'd hoped we might have learned something from the Bush Administration, but instead, we seem to be doubling down on right-wing crazy.
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