Rick Perry Leads Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in New Poll

A USA Today/Gallup poll unveiled on Tuesday found that Texas Gov. Rick Perry led the field for the Republican presidential nomination, but did not do as well as GOP rival former Gov. Mitt Romney when matched up against President Barack Obama.

Perry topped the national poll with 31 percent followed by Romney who took second with 24 percent. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul stood in third with 13 percent.

The rest of the field lagged behind in single digits. Support for U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann continued to slide. She garnered 5 percent -- placing her in a tie with former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and businessman Herman Cain for a distant fourth. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania took 2 percent followed by former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah with 1 percent.

Romney had a slight lead over Obama with adults and with registered voters. The former Massachusetts governor beat the president 48 percent to 46 percent with all adults and 49 percent to 47 percent with registered voters.

Obama led Perry by 4 points among all adults -- and took 50 percent among registered voters, with the Texas governor following with 45 percent.

The USA Today/Gallup poll of 1,004 adults was conducted from Sept. 15-18 and had a margin of error of +/- 4 percent. The sample of 889 registered voters also had a margin of error of +/- 4 percent. The sample of 439 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents had a margin of error of +/- 6 percent.