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.”

~~~

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:

RomneyGekko2012.com:

The first post South Carolina poll for Florida primary on January 31 is out and it’s clear Newt Gingrich now has all of the momentum in the race for the GOP nomination.

These are the numbers from Insider Advantage:

Newt Gingrich 34%
Mitt Romney 26%
Ron Paul 13%
Rick Santorum 11%

Update:

Rasmussen’s Florida poll confirms the Gingrich lead in the Insider Advantage poll: Gingrich 41%, Romney 32%.

This 9 point lead for Gingrich in this Rasmussen poll is a huge 31 point swing towards Gingrich from the last Florida Rasmussen poll which gave Romney a 22 point lead.

Gingrich is now the winner of South Carolina, the front-runner in Florida, and he will likely be leading nationally when the next GOP national polls are released. The Republican establishment in DC is not sold on Gingrich but Republican voters seem to be.

“On Saturday South Carolina Picks a President” said Mitt Romney’s now “unlisted” ad (which you can see below as long as the Romney campaign doesn’t delete it from YouTube entirely.)

I’m assuming that with Newt Gingrich’s big win yesterday, Romney has now flip-flopped on this opinion just like he has flip-flopped on just about everything else.

The results in today’s South Carolina GOP primary (with 99% counted) are:

Newt Gingrich 40%
Mitt Romney 28%
Rick Santorum 17%
Ron Paul 13%

This double digit win is even more impressive than it looks when you consider that Gingrich will likely win a majority of Santorum’s supporters when he inevitably leaves the race.

According PPP’s “second choice” polling of Santorum supporters in Georgia; Gingrich is their second choice twice as often as Romney is.

This means that not only did Gingrich win by 12% points but he likely would have won by even more if Santorum weren’t around and it’s quite likely Santorum won’t be around soon. While he is claiming he will stick around through Florida there will be a lot of pressure on him to quit.

Clearly with this huge victory today Gingrich has all of the momentum in the race. If he can continue his winning ways in Florida on January 31 then he must be considered the new front-runner for the nomination.

For now I think it’s safe to say that this race is wide open. Despite all of the talk of Romney’s “inevitable” nomination by the media and the Republican establishment; Republican primary voters don’t appear willing to settle for him.

The Gallup national tracking poll for the GOP primary continues to show Newt Gingrich closing in on Mitt Romney (aka “Mr 1%.)

Romney’s lead has dwindled from 16% points to 8% points over the past two days and there are reasons to believe that Gingrich will continue to gain:

1. This is a 5 day tracking poll so one of the days included in these numbers is before Gingrich’s surge began after Monday night’s debate.

2. The full effects of Rick Perry dropping out and endorsing Gingrich are not yet included.

3. If Gingrich wins South Carolina today as the polls indicate he will then that should cause a further boost in his national numbers.

4. According to PPP’s second choice question Gingrich is likely to get many more of Rick Santorum’s supporters than Romney will as Santorum’s candidacy dries up. If Santorum finishes last in South Carolina today it seems likely that he will be ending his campaign.

5. The full effect of the many failures of Romney’s campaign this week is still be seen.

Current Gallup National GOP #s

Mitt Romney 31% (-6% since Jan. 16)
Newt Gingrich 23% (+9%)
Ron Paul 14% (even)
Rick Santorum 12% (-2%)

This 52 minute anti-Romney video was made by a conservative activist: