Texas Gov. Rick Perry might be the leader in the race for the GOP Presidential race at the moment, but the previous frontrunner isn’t too shabby in the eyes of Republican primary voters either. New data from Gallup and an ABC/Washington Post survey both show that the candidates enjoy high favorability ratings among party faithful.
In the Gallup poll Perry is viewed favorably by 73 percent of GOP primary voters, while Romney sits at 71. Even though Perry has moved ahead of Romney in national polls, Romney still occasionally outpolls President Obama in match-ups, and has also been shown in some surveys to be the candidate that voters think could do better on the economy than the President. The advantage within the numbers for Perry is that for the moment, he’s rated “strongly favorable” by fifteen points more than Romney, meaning his support is more intense.
An ABC/Washington Post poll found similar trends. Pollsters point to an increasing satisfaction among Republicans with their choices in the presidential nomination process, but they also pointed to the numbers showing the increasingly two person race. From the report:
Among conservative Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has a commanding 39-21 percent lead over Mitt Romney in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. Yet among moderates the tables turn: Romney leads Perry, 35-12 percent.There being more conservatives than moderates in the party, it’s advantage Perry. Yet, in a challenge to party cohesiveness, fewer than eight in 10 Romney supporters, 78 percent, say they’d support Perry in a general election race against Obama. More Perry supporters, 91 percent, say they’d back Romney were he the nominee.
On the downside, the Gallup poll shows former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman seen as favorable by only 1 in 2 Republican voters after challenging the “anti-science” sentiments of the tea party elements of the GOP. Meanwhile, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is the second lowest, with a 60 percent favorability rating.
The Gallup data came from live telephone interviews with 1,400 Republicans and GOP-leaning independents conducted from August 22nd to September 4th, and has a sampling error of 3 points. The ABC/WaPo survey used 1,001 live telephone interviews with adult Americans conducted from August 29th to September 1st. That poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
Kyle Leighton
Kyle is the Poll Editor at TPM. He graduated from Beloit College (WI) and began working in politics before getting an M.A. in magazine journalism from New York University, where he interned at TPM and the website of The New Yorker.
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