Why GOP voters are turning on Newt: 5 theories

With just two weeks to go before the critical Iowa caucuses, the self-assured former House speaker is sinking in the polls. What went wrong?

Newt Gingrich's status as a GOP presidential frontrunner is in serious jeopardy, with one survey of Iowa voters putting him in third place behind Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.
(Image credit: Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images)

"The bad news keeps piling up for Newt Gingrich," says Amanda Paulson in The Christian Science Monitor. His double-digit lead in several national and Iowa-specific polls has evaporated, putting him neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney or, in one new PPP poll of Iowa, behind both Romney and Ron Paul. That PPP poll also has Gingrich's net favorability rating plummeting from +31 two weeks ago to -1 now. Many political junkies had thought Newt's rise to frontrunner status would be more permanent than the short-lived boomlets enjoyed by Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain. Why has Gingrich fallen so hard, so fast? Here, five theories:

1. Gingrich was buried under negative ads

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