Obama Stuck At 45 Percent Against Romney, Perry

By Steven Shepard  //  August 31, 2011 | 6:33 a.m.
Updated: August 31, 2011 | 7:46 a.m.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry and President Obama (AFP/Getty Images)

A new Quinnipiac University poll out early Wednesday shows Texas Gov. Rick Perry has climbed to a narrow lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney runs slightly better against President Obama among all voters.

Perry leads Romney in the GOP race, 24 percent to 18 percent. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is third at 11 percent, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is fourth at 10 percent, and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex., is fifth at 9 percent. No other candidate earns more than five percent of the vote, and 16 percent of Republican primary voters were undecided.

The poll is the third reliable survey in the past two weeks to show Perry in the lead. A Gallup poll released last week gave Perry an 11-point advantage over Romney, while Perry lead Romney in a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday by 13 points.

As Obama's re-election campaign surveys the landscape of the GOP race, a majority of voters believe Obama does not deserve to be re-elected, according to the poll. Forty-two percent say the president deserves to be re-elected, while 51 percent say he does not.

But Perry trails Obama narrowly, with the president capturing 45 percent of the vote to Perry's 42 percent. And for the new Republican frontrunner, Perry's ratings among all voters are tepid: Just 22 percent of voters say they have a favorable opinion of Perry, while 23 percent have an unfavorable opinion. A majority, 55 percent, haven't heard enough about him to form an opinion.

Romney ties Obama in a general-election matchup, with each garnering 45 percent. Last month, Obama led Romney by six points.

Obama holds wider leads over Bachmann (48 percent to 39 percent) and Palin (51 percent to 37 percent).

The presidential race won't be the only election in November 2012, of course, and the Quinnipiac poll finds the two parties tied on a House generic ballot at 38 percent; 19 percent of voters are undecided. That is statistically even with a Quinnipiac poll in late March, when Republicans had a three-point lead on the generic ballot.

While the poll shows the two parties currently deadlocked, in order to win back the chamber, House Democrats will likely need a large advantage on the generic ballot. The Quinnipiac poll was conducted Aug. 17-26 among 2,730 registered voters. The margin of error is +/- 1.9 percent. For the Republican primary matchup, there were 1,185 Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters, for a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent.

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