Republicans Still Like Romney - But The Public Doesn't

Recently, there has been a fair amount of talk about the possibility of Mitt Romney running for president again on the Republican ticket. This is probably because of the failure of any of the other candidates to separate themselves from the rather large pack of possible candidates (or show they would stand a chance of competing with Hillary Clinton if nominated). I have already posted about one poll which showed that right now Romney would have a small lead among all the candidate (but even though he had a lead, he only got about 21% support).

Now there is a new poll showing Romney still has support among the Republican base. It is the YouGov Poll, taken between October 18th and 20th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults with a margin of error of about 4 points. They didn't ask who the base Republican voters would vote for, but instead asked them their opinion of Romney (and the other leading candidates). It turns out that Romney has a significantly higher favorable rating among Republicans than any of the other candidates do (an 8-9 point margin, slightly exceeding the survey's margin of error).

This would seem to say a Romney candidacy is a possibility. But should the Republicans nominate him again? The answer is probably NO. While Romney is viewed very favorably by Republicans, that does not extend to the general public. Look at the charts below, and you will see that Romney has an upside-down rating among the general public (36% favorable and 47% unfavorable). And almost every demographic group has that unfavorable opinion of Romney. Only one group (those 65 & older) give him a significant favorable rating. Two other groups, whites and rich people, are split in their opinion of him (with the difference being within the survey's margin of error).

The news for Romney goes downhill from there. Every single demographic group (even the elderly, the whites, and the rich) say they do NOT want Romney to run for president again. And by large margins, every single demographic group, by large margins, thinks Hillary Clinton would easily beat Romney if he was the Republican candidate.

I personally don't think Romney will run, and after the 2012 fiasco, I seriously doubt the teabaggers (who control the GOP) will let him get the nomination again. Even though no clear favorite has emerged yet, I just don't think a Romney candidacy is viable (at least not in 2016).