Newt Gingrich 2012: Polls Reveal Lead For New 'Not-Romney' Frontrunner

The polls' results could spell trouble for Romney, whose place at the top was threatened first by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and then by Cain. In both cases, Romney managed to hold onto his lead, and in five months of campaigns, the GOP candidate's support has shifted by only two percentage points. This is the first time however, that polls show Romney being outright bested, and by so many percentage points.

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Behind the Rise

"It's better than when I was at four [percent]," Gingrich joked Nov. 14 while on the campaign trail in Iowa.

The jump is a surprise to many who left the Gingrich 2012 campaign for dead back in the spring, but commenters point to Gingrich's name recognition and strong performance in the debates as part of the reason for the GOP candidate's campaign revitalization.

"He's a sharp debater," Ron Brownstein, Political Director of the Atlantic Media Company. "He has been an intellectual and political force in the Republican Party in five different decades."

"When we started the race," Brownstein said, "we were assuming that was going to make it very difficult for him because the Republicans would be looking for a fresher face." In the end however, his stability is doing him credit.

The CNN and PPP polls support this interpretation. If the Republican race is between Romney and Gingrich, voters have them at a dead heat. They are the two most popular candidates, and the only two with favorable ratings above 50 percent of all Republicans and independents surveyed.

Over three quarters of those polled say Gingrich has the right personal qualities to be presidential, and more than seven in 10 agree with him on important issues.

"It's an Anybody-but-Romney Race."

The unavoidable interpretation of Gingrich's rise in the polls however, is not that he is a strong debater or powerful presence in the GOP. It is that, like Perry and Cain before him, he is another shot at the anti-Romney.