Mitt Romney's lead over all of his competitors has been increasing among Republicans nationally in recent days. He now receives the support of 34% of Republicans when they are asked whom they want to be the GOP nominee this year. This is based on the latest five-day average from interviewing conducted Jan. 8-12.
Romney's standing at this juncture in these national numbers is important. My colleague Jeff Jones'analysis has shown that the leader among Republicans nationally after New Hampshire goes on to win the Republican nomination.
The Jan. 8-12 average includes two days before the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary, two days after the primary, and interviewing conducted the night of the primary itself, much of it before the final results were known. We won't have a clean look at the five full days after New Hampshire until Monday, and we'll look carefully then at what it shows. It's highly unlikely that Romney will lose his lead by Monday. Thus, history indicates that Romney is looking more and more like the presumptive favorite to win the GOP nomination.
Some other things worth noting from the detailed graph of the national Republican race. Note in thechart above that Rick Santorum's increase in support, at least so far, has not been nearly as extensive as what we saw for Newt Gingrich. Santorum maxed out at 18% and has been floating down since. In other words, the Santorum boomlet that was driven both by the lead-up to Iowa and the Iowa vote per se (in which Santorum was essentially tied with Romney), has begun to fade.
Gingrich maxed out at 37% support, which is the highest total any candidate has received in our national Republican polling all year, but he has fallen steadily since that point, and is now at 15%. Ron Paul has seen a small rise in his standing among Republicans nationally, but has leveled off at 12%.
Jon Huntsman has the support of 2% of Republicans nationwide. He has received only 1% or 2% support in every Gallup Daily tracking report since we began tracking Dec. 1. We are now in mid-January, after voting has taken place in two states, and after the former Utah governor's heavy-duty campaigning in New Hampshire. This is the point, as noted, where leaders are established. Huntsman is dead last in the national standings. Although he may continue to campaign in South Carolina and Florida, the fact that Huntsman gets 2% of the vote nationally is highly suggestive of a conclusion that he will not be winning the GOP nomination. In fact, we will report new data next week updating the Positive Intensity Scores of the major GOP candidates. It appears that Huntsman will continue his tradition of getting as many or more strongly unfavorable ratings from Republicans as strongly positive ratings.