While it appears that Newt Gingrich’s momentum has stalled in Florida (where Mitt Romney is now the favorite to win) Gingrich’s momentum among Republicans nationally does not appear to be slowing down.

Gingrich expanded his lead in the national GOP Gallup tracking poll an additional 2 points today:

Newt Gingrich 32% (+1)
Mitt Romney 24% (-1)
Ron Paul 14% (+1)
Rick Santorum 13% (-)

That said; Republican voters during this primary season have been remarkably fickle and it seems likely that if Romney wins Florida on Tuesday that Gingrich’s national lead will melt away quite quickly.

It’s also probable that Gingrich’s large lead in Minnesota (which holds a GOP caucus on February 7th) would be in jeopardy if Romney wins Florida.

What we’ve seen in this race so far shows that polling leads can come and go very quickly as GOP voters are justifiably not really happy with any of their choices.

The latest national GOP poll from NBC News/Wall Street Journal has Newt Gingrich ahead of Mitt Romney by nearly 10% points: 37% to 28%.

In fact, Gingrich’s lead over Romney for first is nearly as large as Romney’s lead over Rick Santorum for second.

Newt Gingrich 37%
Mitt Romney 28%
Rick Santorum 18%
Ron Paul 12%

President Obama Beats Romney & Gingrich (& Paul)

This poll also includes general election numbers and President Obama beats both Romney (49% to 43%) & Gingrich (55% to 37%) quite handily and he also wins easily when Ron Paul is included as a 3rd party candidate: Obama 45% Romney 32% Paul 18%.

Democratic Lead in Generic Congressional Ballot

This poll also includes generic congressional ballot numbers and the Democratic Party is up 47% to 41% over the Republican Party which indicates that the Democrats have a very good chance of winning back the House this fall.

This is backed up by the 56% of Americans who would support replacing every single member of the House (including their own representative.) To say that the Republican controlled House is unpopular is an understatement.

Today’s Gallup national tracking poll of the Republican presidential race has Mitt Romney losing three more percentage points giving Newt Gingrich a solid 31% to 25% lead among Republican voters across the country.

Gingrich 31% (—)
Romney 25% (-3)
Paul 13% (+1)
Santorum 13% (+1)

Minnesota: Gingrich Up Big

Most of the attention is on Florida’s GOP primary on January 31st but Minnesota has a caucus the following week (February 7th) and according to this PPP poll Gingrich would win the state by a wide margin if the vote were held today.

Gingrich 36%
Romney 18%
Santorum 17%
Paul 13%

It is notable that among Minnesota GOP voters whose minds are “totally made up” Romney is dead last: Gingrich 44%, Santorum 25%, Paul 16%, Romney 15%!

According to this CBS News poll 91% of Americans approve of the proposals in President Obama’s State of the Union address. You can watch the entire State of the Union address here.

The big problem is it is very unlikely that there will be any significant movement on those proposals because the Republican controlled House is planning on more obstruction, distractions, and sabotage.

Considering this despicable action by the GOP House it is little wonder that congressional approval ratings are so dismal.

1. President Obama’s State of the Union address last night.

2. President Obama proved right on stem cell research. The Republican candidates for President would have criminalized breakthrough.

3. Obama calls for minimum 30% tax on millionaires. This would be bad news for Mitt Romney.

4. Only 17% of Americans agree that corporations should be able to spend unlimited funds on elections.

5. The State of the Union response from Mitch Daniels contained this lie: Apple created more jobs than the Stimulus. This claim is not even close to being true. Even when going by the lowest estimates of the impact of the stimulus on job creation; the stimulus plan created at least 20 times as many jobs as Apple.

6. Mitt Romney profited from mortgage lenders foreclosing on thousands of Floridians.

7. What is Mitt Romney hiding from his years at Bain Capital?

8. Newt Gingrich has a huge 36% to 18% lead over Romney in Minnesota according to this new PPP poll in the state. Minnesota holds its GOP caucus on February 7th.

9. Gingrich’s tax plan would mean nearly zero taxes for Romney.

President Obama gave his 3rd State of the Union address last night. The whole speech can be seen here:

According to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll on the popularity of the 2012 presidential candidates Mitt Romney has grown increasingly unpopular over the past two weeks.

In the poll taken on January 8th Mitt Romney was seen favorably by 39% of registered voters while he was seen negatively by 34%. In this poll taken on January 22nd, Romney’s favorable rating dropped from 39% to 31% while his unfavorable rating skyrocketed from 34% to 49%!

It’s clear Romney has done more than just lose South Carolina in the past two weeks, he has also lost much of his popularity with American voters in general. And that’s before today’s troubling revelation that Romney had a Swiss bank account up until 2010.

Meanwhile President Obama has a decent favorable rating of 53% with 43% seeing the President negatively. This gives the President a good +10% favorable-unfavorable rating vs. Romney’s terrible -18% number.

I think it is particularly notable that 27% of registered voters see the President in a “strongly” favorable light compared to just 6% who have a strongly favorable view of Romney. More than four times as many registered voters have a strongly positive view of the President than they do of Romney. This represents a significant enthusiasm gap.

What about Newt Gingrich? His favorable rating is terrible with just 29% favorable vs. 51% unfavorable. But everyone already knew that Gingrich is very unlikable to average voters. The big news is that Romney’s favorable ratings are almost as bad; -18% for Romney vs. -22% for Gingrich.

Comparison: Obama in January of 2008

Gingrich & Romney are now in comparable positions to where then Senator Barack Obama was in January of 2008 so it seems fair to compare their current favorable ratings with those of Obama in this same poll at the time.

Obama had a 63% favorable rating (including a very impressive 30% strongly favorable) vs. a 30% unfavorable rating at the time for a difference of +33%. This comparison really makes it clear how much stronger of a candidate Obama was in 2008 than Gingrich & Romney are in 2012.

It also seems quite notable that despite endless attacks on him and an economy that is not improving as quickly as anyone who has America’s interest at heart (which may not include Republicans in congress) would want, Obama has never gone below -1% during his Presidency.

Today’s national GOP tracking poll is out and Newt Gingrich has taken a 31% to 27% lead over Mitt Romney. This is a swing of 5% points towards Gingrich just from yesterday (when Romney was holding onto a 1% point lead.)

Newt Gingrich 31% (+3)
Mitt Romney 27% (-2)
Ron Paul 12% (-1)
Rick Santorum 12% (+1)

Because this is a five day tracking poll it is likely under estimating the size of Gingrich’s current lead over Romney as Gingrich’s South Carolina bounce is only included in the last two days.

Gingrich has all of the momentum in this race and Romney’s disclosure that he had a Swiss bank account up until 2010 and that he pays only 13.9% in taxes will likely make things even worse for “Gordon Gekko.”

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Update: Rasmussen is now out with their national GOP numbers and they tell a similar story; Newt Gingrich is the front-runner for the GOP nomination.

Newt Gingrich 35%
Mitt Romney 28%
Rick Santorum 16%
Ron Paul 10%

Mitt Romney released his 2010 & 2011 tax returns today (although he is refusing to release 12 years of tax returns so he must hiding something) and we can now see that he has paid only a 13.9% tax rate on $42.5 million earned over the past two years.

13.9% is a lower tax rate than most hard working Americans pay and yet this is how much the multi-millionaire Mitt Romney (who stashes millions of dollars in the Cayman Islands) pays? Even worse; Romney’s own tax plan would decrease the tax rate for the super wealthy like himself to even lower levels.

But perhaps even more damning than the ridiculously low tax rate Romney pays (and that he wants to cut them in half) is this fact: Mitt Romney had a Swiss bank account up until 2010.

This new web ad explains what President Obama is doing to improve the country (especially the economy) while the Republicans in the House & Senate obstruct all action in congress. In fact, many voters believe that the Republicans are attempting to sabotage job growth for political gain.

The theme is “We Can’t Wait” for the Republicans in the House & Senate to finally stop playing petty politics and actually do their job, so President Obama is doing all he can with the power of the Presidency to make things better for average Americans: