Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is now confidently predicting that he will win the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
“I’m going to be the nominee,” Gingrich told ABC News on Thursday while campaigning in Iowa. “It’s very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I’m going to be the nominee.”
Given the opportunity to respond to attacks from his primary opponents, Gingrich demurred, explaining that he believes such moves are strategically unsound.
“And by the way I don’t object if people want to attack me, that’s their right,” Gingrich said. “All I’m suggesting that it’s not going to be very effective and that people are going to get sick of it very fast. And the guys who attacked each other in the debates up to now, every single one of them have lost ground by attacking. So they should do what they and their consultants want to do. I will focus on being substantive and I will focus on Barack Obama.”
A new Rasmussen poll showed Gingrich leading his closest rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, by 21 points — the biggest lead any candidate has held in the race thus far.