The poll we’ve all been patiently waiting for has arrived. Gallup’s first poll of the Republican field since Rick Perry entered the race has the Texas governor up 12 points on Mitt Romney, 29-17.
The poll breakdown shows why: Romney’s key constituency–self-described moderate and liberal Republicans–can no longer be taken for granted by the former Massachusetts governor. Romney has always had his work cut out for him with conservative Republicans, but if this trend continues it could be disastrous for his campaign:
Perry is a strong contender among key Republican subgroups. Older Republicans and those living in the South show especially strong support for him, at or near 40 percent. Conservative Republicans strongly favor Perry over Romney, but liberal and moderate Republicans support the two about equally. Perry’s support is also above average among religious Republicans.
Perry is locking in his natural base and has begun chipping away at Romney’s; it’s as simple as that. But the other implication of this poll is Romney’s status as the moderate candidate is by no means assured, either. When Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani are included in the poll, Palin seems to take some of Perry’s support, while Giuliani takes some of Romney’s, leaving Perry’s lead over Romney about the same. But what if Giuliani got in but Palin didn’t? Another moderate with strong name recognition may indeed be a threat to Romney. Jon Huntsman has been unable to play that role, but this poll suggests there is still an opportunity for Romney to bleed moderate support.
The poll was taken after Perry’s controversial comments about Ben Bernanke, and in the middle of the debate touched off by his statements on evolution and climate change, so none of those issues seems to have hurt him among GOP primary voters. (This is obviously bad news for Huntsman, who garners 1 percent in this poll.)
Gallup concludes with a bit of a warning to Perry’s camp not to get complacent:
Still, he, like Romney before him, rates as a weaker front-runner than those in prior GOP nomination contests.
But it is very good news for Perry. It will be interesting to see if Romney still avoids attacking Perry, now that their standings in the polls have switched, and Perry is officially the frontrunner.
