>>> politics now. we talked a lot about newt gingrich 's surprising surge in the republican presidential race and a new nbc news " wall street journal " poll shows his lead widening even more. but it's not all good news for the former house speaker . chuck todd is nbc 's political director and chief white house correspondent. good morning, chuck.
>> good morning, matt. the two republican candidates have a electability problem. for mitt romney , with conservatives for gingrich , he convinced some his baggage is old news but he still has a way to go with the political middle. mitt romney 's political action committee is spending millions of dollars in iowa to send the message that newt gingrich will have a problem getting elected.
>> newt has a ton of baggage.
>> reporter: the ad may be on to something. according to the latest nbc news " wall street journal " poll, gingrich still has a lot of negative ratings from his days as speaker of the house . in october, 1998 , the last tumultuous month of his speakership, just 27% of the public had a positive view of gingrich , compared to 46% with a negative view. 13 years later, gingrich 's rating is barely better. 25% feel positively, 40% negatively. despite that, gingrich has surged to become the strongest republican we have tested since the start of this primary campaign. he sits at 40% to romney 's 23%.
>> why is this man smiling? because his plan is working. brutally attack mitt romney , and hope newt gingrich is his opponent.
>> our polls suggest why. in a hypothetical general election , president obama does best when matched up against gingrich . against romney , it's a real nail-biter at 47-45. and to top it off, gingrich is the only presidential candidate tested where half the country says they could never vote for him. romney 's issue is one of ideology. while 70% of all republican voters call themselves conservative, only 29% believe romney is a conservative. compared to 57% who called gingrich a conservative. overall, it's a volatile electorate. more than half those we polled believe the two- party system has real problems, and 34% believe the country needs a third party. businessman donald trump is most vocal. tuesday he bowed out of moderating the controversial debate which newt gingrich and rick santorum agreed to attend. he now won't close the door as running as an independent candidate if the republicans pick what he calls the wrong person.
>> i can't give up that possibility of running. i just feel i owe it to myself, to my family, and perhaps, most importantly, to the country.
>> and one other thing we found in our poll is that republicans aren't impressed with the candidate field. 51% call it average. 27% call it strong. 21% call it weak. matt?
>> chuck todd , thank you very much.
Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/45666320/
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