New Hampshire poll: Romney 29, Newt 24.

This is another example of Newt polling much better in the Granite State than any other Republican not named Romney this cycle.

In fact, Newt is now almost within ten points of the average of New Hampshire polls. I'm not the only one who says it, but if Newt wins Iowa and then comes within 10 in New Hampshire (maybe even 15), Romney is going to look incredibly weak going into South Carolina and Florida.

On Monday night, Newt drew a huge crowd -- 1,000 to 1,250 people were in attendance -- which some are saying it's the biggest event in New Hampshire this year.

Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida polls

CNN released a batch of four polls today at 4 PM Eastern:

Iowa: Newt 33, Romney 20.

New Hampshire: Romney 35, Gingrich 26.

South Carolina: Newt 43, Romney 20.

Florida: Newt 48, Romney 25.

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In Iowa, Newt gets 35% support from women and 32% from men.

Former New Hampshire U.S. Senator Bob Smith endorses Newt

Smith said in his endorsement, “It is not enough to simply defeat President Obama. We must replace him with an inspirational, experienced, conservative leader, with the guts to challenge and change the establishment. Newt Gingrich is that leader.”

Here's the full story.

"I love Newt. How do I help?"

"More and more people are coming into the office," Scott Conroy quotes Gingrich’s New Hampshire campaign support manager, Erin Lamontagne, as saying. "People from all over are here saying, 'I love Newt. How do I help?' "

More from Conroy: “It’s frightening but exciting, I’ll tell you,” volunteer coordinator Pam Smith said of the uptick in interest. “Honest to God, they’re just flowing in hand over fist.”

Newt moving up in two NH polls; within 4 points in one

The InsiderAdvantage poll shows Mitt Romney at 31 and Newt at 27.

I will post any crosstabs of the poll when they are released.

A Rasmussen poll of New Hampshire from today has the race at Romney 34% and Newt at 24%.

Newt now has the highest New Hampshire average of any candidate not named Romney this year.

Terrific polling news!

None of these polls have been fully released, so more details to come:

Iowa:

InsiderAdvantage also reporting brand new poll in Iowa tonight. Shows Gingrich on top with 28, Ron Paul is closest to him with 13. (link)

New Hampshire:

New InsiderAdvantage poll to be released tomorrow shows Romney and Gingrich in a statistical dead heat in New Hampshire. (link)

South Carolina:

New InsiderAdvantage poll from SC tonight! Gingrich 38, Romney 15, Cain 13, Paul 7, Perry 4, Bachman 3, Santorum 2, Someone else 5, undec 13 (link)

Florida:

Newt with big lead on 1st night of our FL poll...he and Romney may be only ones over 10% and he's uniting anti-Mitt vote (link)

Eight New Hampshire House Members endorse Newt 2012

John DiStaso:

Following his Sunday endorsement by the New Hampshire Union Leader, GOP presidential candidate and former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich on Monday picked up the backing of eight New Hampshire House members.

Backing Gingrich were Reps. Laurie Pettengill of Glen, who backed Mitt Romney in 2008, as well as Glen Hill of Northfield, Don McClarren of Nashua, Joe Pitre of Farmington, Kathy Lauer-Rago of Franklin, Joe Osgood of Claremont, Brandon Giuda of Chichester and Ken Sheffert of Hampton.

Pettengill said that although she backed Romney in 2008, “I have chosen to be with Newt this time because I feel he is the most conservative candidate today. He not only has the political know-how, but he will immediately put in to place actions that will renew America.”

(Video) Editor of New Hampshire Union Leader on why the paper endorsed Newt

Link to video.

Newt 2012's ground game

"[Gingrich] has also started to put together a campaign organization in New Hampshire. He brought on respected tea party leader Andrew Hemingway and his team has been contacting almost 1,000 voters each day," writes the AP.

The New York Times: [Gingrich's] hiring of staff members in South Carolina [nine] and New Hampshire [six] is helping to lead one of the largest grass-roots efforts of any candidate." Newt 2012's South Carolina operation is the largest of any candidate running, notes CNN.

The New Hampshire-Union Leader Endorsement

It is the only statewide paper in New Hampshire, so its endorsement is highly sought after. Every candidate attempts to woo the editorial board in meeting with it. Here is the video of Newt's meeting for those who have not seen it.

"A lot of candidates say they're going to improve Washington. Newt Gingrich has actually done that, and in this race he offers the best shot of doing it again," wrote the paper's publisher, Joseph W McQuaid.

Nate Silver of the New York Times ran the numbers to see how meaningful the endorsement is. He found that "On average, the candidates endorsed by The Union Leader finished with 29 percent of the vote in New Hampshire -- an 11-percentage-point improvement from the 18 percent they averaged in the polls when the endorsement was made."

(Video) Newt's meeting with the editorial board of the New Hampshire Union Leader

Link to video.

Newt calls for Personal Retirement Accounts in New Hampshire

Boston.com writes of the plan, which would be voluntary:

Currently, employees and employers pay into the Social Security system through the payroll tax. Under Gingrich’s proposal, the employer-funded portion would go toward keeping the current Social Security system sustainable. But part of the employee-funded portion could be invested in a personal savings account. People would be given the option of putting money into a range of investments administered by private companies, similar to a 401-k plan. The person would own his account, which would be passed on to his estate when the person dies.

Gingrich said in addition to giving people more ownership over their retirement benefits, it would help the economy by spurring investment through the private savings accounts. “The amount of savings builds up rapidly and creates a level of capital which accelerates economic growth,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich adviser Peter Ferrara, a conservative lawyer who served in the administrations of President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, said Gingrich has not yet determined what portion of a person’s payroll tax they could contribute, or for what ages the program would be phased in. But Gingrich said current beneficiaries would not be impacted.

To pay for the transition period, Gingrich would take 185 federal programs that help the poor and give the money – including Medicaid money - as block grants to the states. Gingrich said that would eliminate federal bureaucracy and let states come up with training programs to get people off social programs. “We want to challenge the states not to figure out how you can take this federal block grant to subsidize the poor being poor, we want them to take this amount and use it to figure out how you can help the poor learn to be non-poor,” Gingrich said.

In a report posted on Gingrich’s website, Ferrara estimated that switching to block grants could save the federal government $3.25 trillion over 10 years and the states $1.4 trillion.

The plan can be found on Newt.org here.

New Hamphisre poll: Newt at 22%, highest anyone but Romney has gotten from the polling firm ARG

I'm sorry -- that's Newt Hampshire.

The poll was done by American Research Group.

This is the highest support any candidate other than Romney has had in any of their polls this year.

Among tea party votes, Newt leads Romney, 33-26%.

Last week, a poll, from another firm, of the Granite State showed Romney with 29% support and Newt with 27%.

New Hampshire poll: Romney 29, Newt 27

This poll is especially noteworthy because, as the paper that sponsored the poll writes, it "is the first time any of NH Journal’s polls have shown any candidate even close to Romney."

So while many in the media keeps prattling on about how Newt is just the latest anti-Romney, this poll is yet another piece of evidence that Newt's appeal is greater than that of Bachmann, Perry, and Cain.

From the story:

When asked why people felt Gingrich was moving up in the polls, 44% of respondents cited his depth of knowledge on the issues. Ten percent referred to his strong debate performances while another 6% said they liked that he was challenging the media in those debates. Ten percent referenced his past experience as Speaker of the House.

A close look at the data shows Gingrich is actually leading Romney among certain important subgroups of the electorate. Among self-identified conservative voters, Gingrich beats Romney 34%-27%. Among self-identified tea party voters, he leads Romney 38%-21%.

The one quibble I have with the story: they say Romney remains "the most popular candidate in the field." They back that up by writing that Romney's favorability rating is 60/32.

Newt's? 59/31.

That is, obviously, a tie statistically, and it would have been more accurate to say that Newt has matched Romney's popularity.

New Hampshire has long been written off to Romney. The key for Newt, or another candidate to get the nomination, was always to win Iowa, don't get blown out in the Granite State, and win South Carolina. Now, Newt could win Iowa -- where he has a 13-point lead, according to Rasmussen. Then follow that up with a close second in New Hampshire. South Carolina would be a sort of tie-breaker, and Newt -- because of a superior ground game as well as better appeal to the conservative electorate -- has the advantage there.

If Newt was to win New Hampshire after Iowa, Romney would likely be finished right then.

Newt Hampshire!

NBC:

Following a surge in national polls, Newt Gingrich's distinctive name peppered news headlines frequently over the weekend with gems like "Newtmentum" and "Newtvember."

Today, in a move that no other candidate can replicate, the campaign has told NBC News it is joining in the fun, rolling out "Newt Hampshire!", a social media volunteer platform wholly dedicated to Granite State volunteers.

Communications director Matt LeDuc said the site's content and mobilization strategy will "utterly blow your mind." The site will fully debut next Monday, the same day the former Speaker of the House will return to New Hampshire. Gingrich will participate in an editorial board meeting with the Union Leader newspaper and participate in a couple of campaign stops.

This comes as Gingrich rapidly expands his political operation in New Hampshire, a state in which his staff hopes will be the second stop of a sustained "surge" through the primary season.

The Gingrich campaign has also hired a new senior advisor with a name well known in the Granite State: Jim Wieczorek, an ex-staffer for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and son of sitting executive councilor Ray Wieczorek. He is also vice president of an insurance company bearing the family name.

Wieczorek will be joined by newly-minted captains of all 10 New Hampshire counties, according to Gingrich's New Hampshire state director, Andrew Hemingway.

(Audio) Newt on New Hampshire radio

Link to interview.

(Video) Newt-Santorum one-on-one debate from earlier this week

Link to Part 1.



Link to Part 2.



Link to Part 3.



Link to Part 4.

Newt opens up the New Hampshire Headquarters

The Newt 2012 New Hampshire headquarters were opened Friday.

The campaign sent out these pictures:

Link to picture.

Link to picture.

And Michael Shayan, who was attending the event, tweeted this one:

(For those who are reading the morning e-mail and are not on Twitter, you may have to click on the link to the story to see the pictures.)

Two pictures from Newt 2012 debate watch parties

Link to picture of the Atlanta watch party.

Link to a picture of a New Hampshire watch party.

Newt's campaign to hold four debate watch parties in New Hampshire Wednesday

From John DiStaso:

Newt Gingrich's campaign is hosting four debate-watching parties across New Hampshire for the Wednesday night debate among GOP presidential candidates in Michigan.

...

The campaign says Gingrich supporters are expected to gather at Jillian's Billards in Manchester, Country Cookin' in Epsom, The Upper Crust in Tilton and The Draft in Concord.