President Obama is not a popular politician in Colorado but, according to a recent Public Policy Polling survey, Obama would defeat in a landslide Republican Newt Gingrich, whose star has risen of late but who boasts laughable negative numbers with voters here and is despised by the state’s enormous percentage of independent voters.
Gingrich, however, is the latest in a revolving list of candidates who have floated to the top of the party’s primary contest as an alternative to effective frontrunner Mitt Romney. PPP recently reported Gingrich leading Romney among Colorado Republicans 37-18, partly due to the fact that Gingrich is drawing the lion’s share of Herman Cain supporters left in the lurch when their man dropped out of the race in the wake of horrifically managed spiraling sex scandals.
That Newt is leading here is an obvious problem for the state GOP. Unaffiliated voters make up roughly a third of the Colorado electorate and Obama is polling way out in front of Gingrich in that demographic. PPP surveyed roughly 800 voters this week in Colorado and found Obama leading among independents by a 56 to 32 point spread.
PPP reported a plus/minus 3.5 percent margin of error in the week’s survey. Director Tom Jensen seemed to be having fun writing up the polling results.
Our new Colorado poll is more evidence that the Newt surge could be disastrous for GOP hopes of beating Barack Obama next year….
As weak as Obama is in Colorado, if the Republicans nominate Newt Gingrich it doesn’t look like it matters. Obama leads Gingrich 50-42 in the state, including a whooping 56-32 advantage with independents. Gingrich is a reviled figure with only 32 percent of voters seeing him favorably to 55 percent with a negative opinion, including a 25/59 spread with independents…
The GOP’s move toward supporting Gingrich is seriously endangering its chances of winning in the fall.
Jensen writes that Romney is running roughly neck and neck with Obama and that, if Republican primary voters can hold their noses and vote to nominate him as their general election candidate, Colorado could “go back into the swing state category.”
“Or it could be another easy Obama win as it was in 2008.”
