At the show story meeting yesterday, a discussion about the nature of Ron Paul’s Iowa surge eventually became last night’s Ron Paul segment. Something I had wondered was whether he is drawing new support from undecideds or whether he is drawing numbers from the other candidates. So I spent some of the afternoon poking through the recent PPP Iowa poll (pdf) that shows him surging.
I didn’t find enough solid evidence to support an answer to my question, but I did find some interesting food for thought, particularly given the Steve Schmidt segment about the Republican establishment having a problem with Newt Gingrich as their candidate.
Way down among the crosstabs, the poll attempts to gauge how committed the respondents are to their preferred candidate. Newt Gingrich’s “strongly committed”s are second only to Ron Paul, so that’s good news for him. But he also has the most by far supporters who “might end up supporting someone else.”
Now, I’m familiar with the criticisms and caveats about reading too much into polls. And I claim no expertise at divining insight from polls. But to the extent that everyone is wondering if Newt will melt like the other non-Mitt-Romney flavors of the month, I can’t help but wonder if that number is what a bubble looks like before it pops. Recommended
