Oh, Newt. Will you ever win?

Voters nationally are evenly divided on Barack Obama’s job performance at 48% approving and 48% disapproving. Despite the mixed feelings toward him he leads Mitt Romney by 7 at 49-42, Newt Gingrich by 14 at 51-37, and Sarah Palin by 17 at 54-37 in hypothetical match ups. That’s because even if voters are ambivalent about him, they don’t like the Republican alternatives. Romney’s favorability is 35/48, Palin’s is 30/63, and Gingrich’s is a remarkably bad 19/64.

All of these numbers are pretty much par for the course in our national Presidential polling this year except for one thing: Gingrich has completely tanked with Republican voters, providing real confirmation that his campaign rollout has been a total disaster. Only 38% of GOP voters have a favorable opinion of him and there are now more, at 45%, with an unfavorable one. I doubt anyone has ever been nominated for President who ever had negative favorability numbers within their own party less than a year out from the primary season.

Probably not.