Is it crazy to think that Newt would do better against Obama than Romney?

[Capitan Zapp Brannigan]

I think Gingrich has a better shot against Obama than Romney does. Romney is wooden, bad at interviews and struggles when challenged with his flip-flops. Obama's campaign will destroy him if he's the nominee. And his campaign in the primaries hasn't been inspiring to say the least. At least Newt will be able to carve out contrasts with the President where Romney can't.

Am I the only one who thinks this?

[Lief 🗽]

I've been saying this for weeks now.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

It is not crazy to think Newt would do better, but on the same token, it's not crazy to think Mitt would blow Newt out of the water, either. Each candidate has major flaws, and it's hard to know who has it worse without benefit of hindsight.

[cavalcade]

Romney is wooden, bad at interviews and struggles when challenged with his flip-flops...And his campaign in the primaries hasn't been inspiring to say the least.

Agreed.

I also think either would be competitive with Obama in a debate, and the base, especially evangelicals, would be more excited about Newt.

But, Newt's strength has not appeared in polls yet except for Rasmussen's tracker.  I do think this is partly because Newt is not seen as a serious candidate, and he'd get that with the nomination, but I think quite a few people would still imagine President Newt Gingrich and say, Really?

Going state by state in particular, I struggle to see the case for Newt.  He takes MI off the map completely, and NH likely becomes a tossup.  He can't out-fundraise Romney.  He currently underperforms Mitt among AZ Hispanics- maybe he closes that gap once he's serious, but it's not going to turn into a strength that makes him more competitive in NV/CO/NM.

[Lief 🗽]

First of all, comparing general election polls a year before the general election is pretty useless. Romney is doing better in polls now, yes, but that's before an entire year of campaigning, debates, attack ads, etc.

Thus, I think you need to look at the candidate's fundamentals. Romney is fundamentally a deeply, deeply flawed candidate. Evidence of that is the fact that he's been running for president for six years, have better organization and more money than all his opponents, is loved by the media, and despite all this consistently struggles to win more than 20-25% of the vote against a pack of idiots, serial sexual harassers, unqualified loons, and has-beens. People, on a gut level, just don't like the guy.

Romney is also a candidate that can easily and effectively be campaigned against. Whether it's "Let Detroit go bankrupt" or his "experience" as someone whose job it was to destroy American businesses and send jobs overseas, all these things add up. And it makes it very easy for Obama to run a populist "99% vs. 1%" campaign that not only has the potential to destroy Romney but drag the Republicans across the ticket down with him. Not to mention Romney's other faults as a politician (he's wooden and unlikeable, he's very easily angered/flustered, he doesn't really have a passionate appeal to any base of voters).

Now clearly Gingrich has problems of his own. And indeed I think Newt's worst-case scenario is significantly worse than Romney's. Newt obviously has pretty great character/integrity issues. But so does Romney (the whole flip-flopper thing). However, attacking Newt's character issues directly is difficult; you can't just come out in an ad and tell people that he's a sleazy adulterer. Romney's character issues, on the other, are easy to attack, and devastatingly so (see the newest DNC ad, for example).

The one area where Romney does have a clear enough advantage is that organizationally, his campaign has proven to be more solid. He run many competitive campaigns and has been running for president since 2005. Gingrich has not run in a competitive election since the 1980s. But if Gingrich does win the nomination, he'll have the entire Republican party behind him. He'll have the resources and people he needs.

[Yank2133]

Romney's organization/money advantage may not even mean anything anymore. I mean look at NH and FL, Mitt has basically lived there.....yet Newt has cut into his lead in NH and is killing him in FL.

He truly is a frontrunner in name only.

[The Mikado]

I think that Mitt has a much higher floor than Newt (possibly a hugely higher floor), but perhaps...perhaps Newt has a higher ceiling.

[Devils30]

I know Newt will get better base turnout among evangelicals and tea partiers but most of these types are in states going red anyway. Florida, Virginia and Ohio don't have terribly large christian right populations. Of course northern FL, southern VA are good base areas for the GOP but small in population.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I think that Mitt has a much higher floor than Newt (possibly a hugely higher floor), but perhaps...perhaps Newt has a higher ceiling.

Romney doesn't generate that much negative feelings.

[Politico]

It's the females!

1) How is Gingrich going to be any more competitive than McCain if he cannot win over female voters? Or are we really supposed to believe that Gingrich can improve McCain's female support by 10% or more (i.e., move it from 43% to 47-48%, about a ten percent improvement, which is the the bare minimum needed to beat Obama). Romney is the one who can get the female numbers up there...

Conclusion: Romney has a higher ceiling

2) Furthermore, there are plenty of people who do not support Obama who would not support nor vote for Gingrich, myself included. In fact, I would vote for Obama again if that is the choice. Almost everybody who does not support Obama would support Romney, or at least vote for him. Can you name anybody who does not support Obama who would vote for Obama over Romney?

Conclusion: Romney has a higher floor