Newt Gingrich Crushes Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in National Poll

On Tuesday, Gallup started running its daily tracking national polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich leads the pack with 37 percent followed by former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in second with 22 percent.

The rest of the field lags behind in the single digits. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas places a distant third with 8 percent followed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry with 7 percent and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann with 6 percent. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania takes 3 percent while former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah trails with 1 percent.

The poll of 1,277 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents was taken from Dec. 1-5 and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.