Romney's "All Or Nothing" Campaign Style Reaps Results: Leading In Florida Primary

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Romney’s Fight to Win Comes at a Cost, Polls Show

If Mitt Romney wins the Florida primary, he will have taken a major step toward securing the Republican presidential nomination.

But at what cost?

Mr. Romney’s campaign, which had been carefully calibrated for months in 2011 to set up a general-election contest with President Obama, ran into a conservative buzz saw in the first month of 2012 that exposed a series of potential threats to Mr. Romney’s long-term success.

The monthlong feud with Newt Gingrich has identified clear vulnerabilities for Mr. Romney on issues like his wealth, his work for Bain Capital, a private equity firm, the taxes he pays and his positions on immigration, Medicare and health care.

It also has cost Mr. Romney — at least for now — the generally likable image that he has nurtured for years. In polls during the last several weeks, the number of people who view him favorably has plunged, especially among independent voters who will likely decide the general election later this year.

In a Washington Post/ABC poll last week, 49 percent of the respondents nationwide held an unfavorable view of Mr. Romney, while only 31 percent had a favorable one. That is a reversal from last September, when more people held a favorable view of Mr. Romney than an unfavorable one.

Independents, in particular, now have a less favorable opinion of Mr. Romney, with favorable opinions dropping from a high in the mid-40s in late November to a low of 23 percent last week, according to the Post poll.

The drop in Mr. Romney’s favorability comes as Mr. Gingrich and his allies have hammered away at Mr. Romney’s character — accusing him of being a dishonest politician who cannot be trusted to tell people the truth.

In one advertisement titled “Blood Money” produced by a “Super PAC” backing Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Romney is accused of having “supervised a company guilty of massive Medicare fraud. That’s a fact.” The ad shows the words “illegal activity” on the screen.

Mr. Obama’s campaign manager made it clear last week that he intends to try and capitalize on the weaknesses.

“As Mitt Romney moves through the Republican primaries, he finds himself in an increasingly weak position among every category of voter critical for a Republican to win the general election,” the campaign manager, Jim Messina, said in a memorandum to reporters. “The bottom line is this: the more voters learn about Romney, the more unfavorably they view him.”

Senior aides to Mr. Romney say they are not overly worried about the impact of what they conceded has so far been an intensely fought intraparty campaign. Airing the vulnerabilities early will help make them less damaging later, they said. And they point to polls that show Mr. Romney is still ahead of Mr. Obama in some of the head-to-head matchups.

“At a time when he’s supposedly ground down to the bottom, you have all this negative messaging in various forms, and he’s still beating Obama,” said one adviser who spoke about strategy on condition of anonymity.

Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist who worked for Mr. Romney during his first White House bid in 2008, predicted that things would improve for Mr. Romney dramatically if he wins the party’s nomination.

“Victory usually washes away the mud and grime,” Mr. Castellanos said. “When voters need a candidate, they reinvent him and shave off his warts. The fact that national surveys have Romney nearly tied with Obama is both remarkable and proof of that.”

And yet, the list of potential concerns for Mr. Romney is only getting longer as he continues to battle Mr. Gingrich for the nomination.

The extended back-and-forth over Mr. Romney’s taxes has revealed new issues about Swiss bank accounts and mutual funds that include Cayman Islands investments.

Mr. Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital — which was hardly an issue in 2008 — has now become fodder for intense criticism by two of Mr. Romney’s Republican rivals and the subject of a 30-minute documentary.

And Mr. Romney’s repeated criticism of his rivals on immigration may have hardened the view of him among Hispanics, a voting block that could be crucial for a Republican nominee in the fall. A recent survey by Univision showed Mr. Romney getting less support among Hispanics than Senator John McCain did in 2008.

But the question may not be whether the nominating fight has exposed vulnerabilities for Mr. Romney, but whether he can repair them if he becomes the party’s nominee.

In 2008, Mr. Obama’s favorability dropped during the spring, when he was battling charges from Hillary Rodham Clinton that he was out of touch with working-class voters and too closely tied to his controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

By the week of April 25, a New York Times/CBS poll showed Mr. Obama with a favorability rating of just 39 percent — still higher than the 34 percent who viewed him unfavorably, but lower than it had been. Those who viewed him unfavorably jumped 10 percentage points from the month earlier.

But Mr. Obama’s approval ratings improved over the summer and into the fall. By the time the election arrived, a New York Times/CBS poll showed that 51 percent viewed him favorably.

If the battle for the nomination between Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich goes on for several more months — like it did in 2008 between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton — it will give Mr. Romney less time to make that shift.

If Mr. Romney secures the nomination sooner, he will have more time to repair whatever damage has been done.

John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster, said that engaging Mr. Obama directly will do the most to help Mr. Romney.

“The best defense is a good offense,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “In spite of what the G.O.P. candidates have done to each other, 90 percent of all Republican voters, most independents and a double-digit share of Democrats are unfavorable to and disapprove of the job the president is doing.”

He added: “The president, without saying Romney, teed up his fairness State of the Union as a contrast to Mitt. Mitt should return the favor and run against the record of the biggest presidential failure since Hoover. He will unite the base and expand it among women, Latinos and Jewish voters.”


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