With the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination squaring off in a debate in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, a poll of likely Republican primary voters released on Monday found that former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts was the favorite to win the nations first presidential primary.
The poll from the Institute of Politics at Harvard University and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College found Romney leading the pack of Republican presidential hopefuls with 38 percent. Businessman Herman Cain, continuing to ride the momentum of his upset win in the Presidency 5 straw poll in Orlando last month, placed second in the Granite State with 20 percent. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas took third in the poll with 13 percent.
The rest of the field lagged behind in single digits. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was a distant fourth with 5 percent followed by former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah, who switched his campaign headquarters from Florida to New Hampshire, and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas with 4 percent each. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota took 3 percent followed by former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania with 1 percent each.
Kicking the data over, Patrick Griffin, a senior fellow at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, said the survey showed that the stakes are high for the Tuesday night debate.
"The real significant finding in this data is not so much who the front-runner is at this point -- Governor Romney has been the front-runner in this field for a while -- but who is not in the top tier, said. Griffin With Herman Cain showing surprising strength as the Romney alternative and a compressed primary schedule, Governor Perry may be running out of time in New Hampshire. There is a lot more riding on this Tuesday's debate for Romney, Cain and Perry (in that order) today than there was yesterday."
The poll of 648 likely voters in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary was taken Oct. 2-6 and had a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percent.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or (850) 727-0859.
