The field for the 2012 Republican nomination is more jumbled up than ever in PPP's monthly polling on it with the leading four candidates all within two points of each other. Mike Huckabee's at 23%, Mitt Romney at 22%, and Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin at 21%. Ron Paul is a distant fifth at 4%.
This month's poll makes it more clear than ever that there's plenty of room for more candidates to evolve into serious 2012 Republican contenders. Only 54% of those surveyed said they want one of the current front runners to be their nominee while 24% explicitly said they wanted someone outside of the Huckabee/Romney/Gingrich/Palin/Paul quintet to be the nominee and the other 22% said they weren't sure. Between support being evenly divided among the four leading contenders and almost half of the GOP electorate open to none of the above there's plenty of room for a Tim Pawlenty or Mitch Daniels or Rick Santorum or whoever else to become a real factor in the race.
The essential problem for a potential Palin Presidential bid comes through yet again in this poll: the disconnect between her popularity with Republican voters and their willingness to let her be their nominee. At 76% favorability she's running 11 points ahead of anyone else but still stuck in the muddle on the horse race. Gingrich is next most popular at 65% favorability followed by Huckabee at 62%, Romney at 57%, and Paul at 36%.
We've said it time and again but it continues to be true- there is no real front runner in this race.
Full results here
CNN just found Ron Paul to have 10% national support (they've had him at 8,8, and 10).
ReplyDeleteSo keep polling him. Seems like a fluke.
Indeed, when PPP polled New Hampshire, he got 13% for third place.
Thanks.
So what did you find in that Washington poll you conducted awhile go? What did that poll show?
ReplyDeleteRepublicans like Sarah Palin... doing what she's doing. Her numbers won't improve.
ReplyDeleteWhen the campaign really starts getting into high gear, I suspect that we're going to see a whole bunch of new faces in the running; aside from those that you're now polling. I seriously doubt that Sarah Palin, Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich will be around very long. I also doubt that even Mitt Romney will make the "A" list. Mike Huckabee, if he runs, will most likely be a major contender. Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Rick Santorium, along with possibly Bobby Jindal haven't had, as yet, enough name recognition or media attention to say, one way or the other, what their chances of moving on are. At this point, it's simply too early to say who will or will not be there to the end. We'll all have to just wait and see.
ReplyDelete"So what did you find in that Washington poll you conducted awhile go? What did that poll show?"
ReplyDeleteY'know, you can search our website or this blog for all of our poll results.
I think he meant the GOP 2012 numbers that you never posted, that you had previously said you would
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