Does Gingrich Have a Glass Jaw?

One of the big questions surrounding Newt Gingrich’s surge is the extent to which voters are familiar with his baggage. If it is already “priced in,” then he is probably a very serious candidate for the nomination. On the other hand, if he is largely trading on his strong debate performances and goodwill lingering from his term as the first Republican speaker of the House in 40 years, he may have significant vulnerabilities.

A new survey from Evolving Strategies suggests that the latter is the case. Evolving Strategies uses what are essentially Internet-based focus groups to test the effects of different attacks on the speaker. It isn’t affiliated with any campaign this cycle.

A second group, the so-called “Gingrich condition,” watched a positive Gingrich ad, a negative ad about Gingrich, a positive Perry ad, and a negative ad about Perry (you can view the different ads here).

A third group, the “Romney condition,” watched a positive Romney ad, a negative Romney ad, a positive Perry ad, and a negative Perry ad.

In the control group, 42 percent of respondents made Gingrich their top choice in the GOP primary. But in the “Gingrich condition,” support for the former speaker was only 26 percent, a drop-off of 18 points. The winner in this scenario was Romney, who numbers ticked up substantially, even though viewers didn’t see any Mitt Romney ads.

Interestingly, in the “Romney condition,” where viewers saw ads about Romney and Perry, there was little effect on Romney’s support, and Gingrich’s support increased only marginally. This suggests that most of the negative information about Romney (and Perry) truly is “priced in” at this point.

Evolving Strategies concludes that “voter opinion in the early caucus/primary states could shift quickly and substantially against Gingrich in the coming weeks as the information flow intensifies and voters tune in to the contest.”

This suggests that Gingrich’s supporters really haven’t priced in negative information about him — a critical consideration at this point in the election. Gingrich is putting a truly top-notch team in place, but he has not hit the airwaves with a major ad buy and is still behind in organizing. If he is swamped by attack ads from Romney, Ron Paul and others, he may struggle to regain his footing.

Indeed, we may already be seeing the effects of these advertisements on Gingrich’s support. His lead has shrunk a few points in the past few days nationally. Most importantly, in Iowa, he is down nearly four points since peaking on Dec. 10, with one pollster showing him only one point ahead of Paul, and a second pollster showing him trailing Mitt Romney by three points.

The polling is also consistent with what the focus groups revealed about Perry: that he should not be counted out. In a field of all eight Republicans, he was the top choice of relatively few Republican voters, coming in fifth place. But when second and third choices were figured in, he was in the ballpark of both Romney and Gingrich. This suggests that, were Romney and Gingrich both to stumble, it would create an opening for Perry. And indeed, Perry has quietly crept up three points in Iowa over the past few weeks, moving from sixth to fourth place.

Overall, this confirms the general conventional wisdom about the Republican race. It is still an extremely fluid contest, where voters are just now beginning to tune in, and have very loose preferences. In other words, it’s still anybody’s ballgame.