Newt Gingrich’s terrible, horrible, no good very bad campaign roll out just got a little bit worse.
According to a PPP poll released Thursday, Gingrich’s own party has rapidly turned against on the former House speaker, as a plurality now say they have an unfavorable opinion of him.
In the poll, 38% of Republican voters said they view Gingrich favorably, versus 45% who view him unfavorably. That’s a huge 27 point swing from last month when 52% viewed him favorably, and 32% viewed him unfavorably.
Gingrich stumbled right out of the blocks when he formally launched his presidential campaign earlier this month, and he’s struggled to save face ever since.
In an interview on Meet the Press, Gingrich assailed the Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan to privatize Medicare as “right-wing social engineering,” prompting a backlash from leaders of his own party, including Ryan himself, who said, “With allies like that, who needs the left?” Then, after a campaign stop in Iowa, a local Republican was caught on camera telling Gingrich he was a “disgrace” to the party for undercutting Ryan.
Gingrich went through a number of verbal contortions to explain himself, ultimately apologizing to Ryan and saying anyone who used his own statements against him would be lying.
Add to all that a bizarre, overwritten defense of Gingrich penned by his spokesman, and the revelation that Gingrich and his wife Callista rang up between $250,000 and $500,000 in charges at Tiffany & Co while Callista was an aide on a House committee the company was actively lobbying, and it’s been a rough few weeks for the Gingrich campaign.
The PPP poll was conducted May 23-25 among 600 registered voters nationwide. It has a margin of error of 4.0%.
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