Ron Paul Stalls Against Obama in New Poll

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas trumpeted a poll from Rasmussen Reports last month that their candidate was in a dead heat with President Barack Obama -- but a poll released by Rasmussen on Tuesday found the president beating Paul by a healthy margin.

The national poll of likely voters found Obama taking 44 percent while Paul trailed with 34 percent. The poll found that Paul was having a hard time rallying Republicans to his standard. While Obama could rely on 79 percent of Democrats, only 61 percent of the Republicans surveyed backed Paul. Obama led Paul with voters outside the two major parties, taking 40 percent to the congressmans 33 percent.

In other recent Rasmussen polls, Obama led Mitt Romney by 3 points, Rick Perry by 6 points, Michele Bachmann by 16 points and Jon Huntsman by 8 points.

The poll of 1,000 likely voters was taken on Saturday and Sunday and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.

Obama led Paul by 1 percent in the Rasmussen poll from August and by 4 points in the poll released in July.