A national CNN poll released Monday found that former Gov. Mitt Romney and businessman Herman Cain are in a close battle to lead the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
The poll, conducted by ORC International for CNN, found Romney leading the pack with 26 percent followed by Cain in second with 25 percent. Texas Gov. Rick Perry placed third with 13 percent.
The rest of the field trailed in single digits. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas took fourth with 9 percent followed by former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 8 percent. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota garnered 6 percent. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum took 2 percent while former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah trailed with 1 percent.
Since winning the Presidency 5 straw poll in Orlando last month, Cain has been surging in polls at the national and state level while Perry has tanked in recent weeks. Perry led a CNN poll taken Sept. 9-11 with 32 percent, Romney in second with 21 percent while Cain took seventh place with 6 percent. The Texas governor also led a CNN poll taken Sept. 23-25 with 30 percent followed by Romney with 30 percent and Cain in fourth with 9 percent.
The new CNN poll found 33 percent of Republicans said they had made up their mind about a candidate while 67 percent remained open to backing other GOP hopefuls. Sixty-six percent of the Republicans surveyed were satisfied with their crop of presidential candidates while 33 percent were not.
The poll also found President Barack Obama was in good shape if he were to face a major opponent in the Democratic primaries. Eighty-one percent of the Democrats surveyed wanted to see their party renominate Obama while 18 percent hoped someone else would emerge as the nominee. So far, no major candidate has filed to run against Obama in the primaries and none appears to be on the horizon.
The poll also found that Republicans were more enthused about the 2012 election than Democrats. A solid majority of Republicans surveyed -- 64 percent -- were extremely or very enthusiastic about the 2012 elections while only 43 percent of Democrats were. Sixteen percent of Republicans were not enthusiastic about the 2012 elections as opposed to 22 percent of the Democrats surveyed.
The CNN poll of 925 registered voters was taken Oct. 14-16 and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. This includes a sample of 458 registered Democrats with a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percent and a sample of 391 registered Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 5 percent.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or (850) 727-0859.
