A new Quinnipiac poll has the GOP presidential race looking like this:
1. Herman Cain 30%
2. Mitt Romney 23%
3. Newt Gingrich 10%
4. Rick Perry 8%
5. Ron Paul 7%
6. Michele Bachmann 4%
7. Jon Huntsman 2%
8. Rick Santorum 1%
The poll also finds a sizable 16% undecided. It was conducted among registered voters from October 25 – 31, so it would have caught only the leading edge of whatever effect the Cain sexual harassment media hit job will have.
This continues a strong surge for Cain in the Quinnipiac poll, which had the race as Romney 22, Cain 17, Perry 14 at the beginning of October. They’ve also tracked a slow but steady march upward for Gingrich, and the same Rick Perry waterslide that every other poll shows. Romney remains frozen in the 20-25% range while everyone else bounces around him.
Quinnipiac also shows President Obama’s approval rating ticking up to 47/49 approve / disapprove, up from 41/55 last month:
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“President Barack Obama seems to be improving in voters’ eyes almost across-the-board,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “He scores big gains among the groups with whom he has had the most problems – whites and men. Women also shift from a five-point negative to a four-point positive. |
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“Whether this is a blip, perhaps because of the death of Moammar Gadhafi and the slight improvement in some of the economic numbers, or the beginning of a sustained upward move in his popularity isn’t clear and won’t be for some time. Nevertheless, the movement allows the White House a sigh of relief, for the president’s approval had been stuck in the low 40s for some time and even a temporary upward move is good news for the folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.” |
Specifically, Qunnipiac sees the President going from 60/36 to 55/43 among men, and 62/34 to 56/40 among white voters. He beats all of the Republican challengers in head-to-head matchups, from 47-42 over Romney to 50-40 over Cain and 52-37 over Gingrich.
