Gingrich ‘flawed, but he’s our guy’

Any qualms they may have about Gingrich’s personal foibles — only 16 percent of respondents said Gingrich is the candidate with the most integrity — were swept aside by what you might call the one-of-us factor, said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research.

Georgians who are drawn to Gingrich feel that they know him and that he knows and understands them, Coker said.

“He’s flawed, but he’s our guy,” he said. “Roots matter for something in Georgia.”

Verniece Zorn, a 70-year-old retired printing company worker, said she made a promise to herself years ago that if Gingrich ever ran for president, she would support him. She liked the newsletters he had sent her as a Georgia congressman. Zorn, who identifies herself as an evangelical Christian, said she has looked beyond Gingrich’s multiple marriages and acknowledged infidelities, and she believes he is the most capable leader in the race.

“None of us are perfect. We all have our little hang-ups,” said Zorn, of Stockbridge. “He’s my first choice. I believe he knows more than all of them put together.”

As for issues the voters care about, the economy trumps everything else, including tax reform, health care, the national debt and social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. That’s true virtually no matter how you slice the electorate, the poll found. Some groups — nonevangelicals, those without a college degree — are especially focused on economic issues, but no group rates other concerns above the economy.

The poll, conducted for the AJC and the Georgia Newspaper Partnership, surveyed 625 likely GOP primary voters Monday through Wednesday. Gingrich was the choice of 43 percent of respondents, followed by Mitt Romney with 29 percent, Rick Santorum with 12 percent and Ron Paul with 6 percent.

Georgians will go to the polls on March 6, Super Tuesday. With 76 GOP delegates, Georgia is the biggest prize among the 10 states voting that day.

Looking at the demographics of the Mason-Dixon sample, which included only registered voters who said they are likely to vote in the GOP primary, 97 percent were white, and men and women were equally represented. About half were college graduates. Fifty-nine percent said their annual income was $50,000 or more.

Nine in 10 said they’re watching the Republican contest closely or very closely. The many televised debates played the strongest role in shaping their views of the race, followed by TV news coverage, Internet sites, newspapers, campaign ads and social media.

Twenty-seven percent of those surveyed identified themselves as members of the tea party. That is the same percentage who claimed tea party membership in a Mason-Dixon poll in July 2010. Compared to respondents as a whole, they were equally likely to favor Gingrich, less likely to favor Romney and more likely to support Santorum.

Romney polled better than Gingrich among voters who said they were not evangelical and those who described themselves as moderate or liberal, but those groups were in the minority.

Harry Rollins is still making up his mind among the Republican candidates, but he’s leaning toward Romney because, he said, “he seems to have his act together.”

Rollins likes Romney’s business experience but hates that he is from Massachusetts, “where all those doggone Kennedys are from.”

As for Gingrich, familiarity in this case worked against the candidate. “I met him and he kind of snubbed me,” said Rollins, 71, of Austell.

He doesn’t know much about Santorum, but he likes what he’s heard: “He’s the most evangelical and he’s anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion.”

Most importantly, though, Rollins is looking for someone to fix the economy.

“I know a lot of people out of work who are qualified,” he said. “My son’s one of them.”

Most respondents in the Mason-Dixon poll were surveyed before Santorum’s sweep Tuesday night of contests in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota. Thus the poll did not capture the bump Santorum may have gotten in Georgia, Coker said.

A poll by another firm performed later in the week reflected a surge of enthusiasm for Santorum in Georgia. He appeared to have siphoned off some support from both Gingrich and Romney, but political analysts said it’s difficult to know whether he can sustain that momentum.

The Mason-Dixon poll held one piece of good news for Santorum: Respondents gave him the highest marks for integrity, followed by Romney, Gingrich and Paul.

Jan Sheffield, 56, said she worked on one of Gingrich’s campaigns years ago, but she moved on after he “made some bad decisions.” A Marietta resident and member of the tea party, she favored Michele Bachmann earlier in this contest but switched her allegiance to Santorum after Bachmann bowed out.

“I believe he’s real; I can trust him,” she said.

She struggles with Romney, because she believes he has flip-flopped on issues and supports health care initiatives that resemble the federal overhaul. “That is huge to me,” she said.

While she said she believes that Romney’s Mormon religion is a cult, she likes the fact that it emphasizes good deeds by members. “I could vote for a Mormon,” she said.

Overall, those polled had decidedly mixed feelings on Romney’s religion, with 36 percent saying they viewed it as a positive, 29 percent defining it as a negative and 35 percent indicating they had no opinion. But the pollsters warned that people’s objections are probably higher than registered in the poll, because some people are hesitant to voice what might be interpreted as intolerance.

On a key issue Romney’s opponents have tried to use against him — his role as the CEO of Bain Capital — only 23 percent of those polled criticized his work with the private equity and investment firm. Almost half saw it as a positive.

Gingrich’s work for the federal mortgage agency Freddie Mac was viewed much less favorably. Forty-eight percent of respondents called it a negative, although one-quarter said they had no opinion.

Despite those areas of vulnerability, strong majorities of voters expressed generally favorable opinions of Gingrich, Santorum and Romney. However, 42 percent had unfavorable views of Paul.

Patsy Bohannon, 60, of Palmetto is not among them. She supports Paul because of his advocacy of a flat tax and “his ideas of not going to war.”

“Let’s get someone with some different ideas,” she said. “What we’re doing isn’t working.”

The school bus driver said that social issues stand at the forefront of her political beliefs, especially her opposition to abortion.

“I’m against abortion for religious reasons, and I don’t want my tax dollars used to pay for it,” she said.

Even though Gingrich holds a double-digit lead, the poll revealed some fluidity in people’s choices. More than 40 percent of Gingrich and Romney supporters, and almost 70 percent of Santorum voters, said they had started out backing another candidate.

Nevertheless, Gingrich remains a “very strong favorite” to win the Georgia primary, Coker said.

On the other hand, Coker noted, Gingrich himself adds an element of unpredictability. On any given day, the pollster said, Gingrich has the potential to say or do something that “blows up the room.”

About the Georgia Newspaper Partnership

This article was compiled as part of the Georgia Newspaper Partnership, which includes The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Athens Banner-Herald, The Augusta Chronicle, The Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Columbus Ledger Enquirer, The Dalton Daily Citizen, The Gainesville Times, The Georgia Times-Union (Brunswick), The Macon Telegraph, The Rome News -Tribune, The Savannah Morning News, The Statesboro Herald and The Valdosta Daily Times.