Latest poll: Is Rick Perry now a shoo-in?
That was easy. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been in the Republican presidential race for only about a week and a half, and he鈥檚 already blowing the doors off his competitors.
A just-published Gallup poll . He鈥檚 the choice of 29 percent of GOP voters, with ex-frontrunner Mitt Romney trailing in second, at 17 percent.
Perry鈥檚 numbers are even more impressive when you break them down. He leads Romney in every sub-category of Republican except those who say they are liberal or moderate Republicans. It鈥檚 an impressive showing. Is he now a shoo-in to win the nomination?
Nope. In politics, it鈥檚 not over until the weight-challenged lady sings, meaning there鈥檚 a lot of time yet for the race to scramble once again.
Perry鈥檚 numbers may reflect real strength. They may also reflect the fact that he is just the latest fresh face at the dance. Remember Donald Trump? There was a time there when some polls put him at the top of the GOP race, too. But that didn鈥檛 last.
Perry still rates as a , compared to GOP front-runners of the past, notes Gallup. Typically, Republican nomination races produce a top person who鈥檚 ahead by 10 to 20 points in the early going.
Perry鈥檚 problem will be to avoid the fates of two other major late-entering candidates: Fred Thompson in the 2008 Republican race, and Wesley Clark in the 2004 Democratic race.
鈥淏oth created a buzz surrounding their potential candidacies, and ranked among the national leaders upon entering the race. However, both fared poorly in early primaries and caucuses and soon after ended their candidacies,鈥� writes Gallup analyst Jeffrey Jones.
That said, there are other aspects of these new Gallup numbers we find intriguing.
First, Perry isn鈥檛 just the conservatives鈥� darling. The conventional wisdom upon his entry into the race was that the Texas governor would become the tea party-backed alternative to the more mainstream Romney. But this latest poll shows Romney has dropped six points since the last Gallup survey, in July. That means Perry appears to be attracting Romney voters.
Second, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann looks like she鈥檚 stalled, according to the Gallup data. She peaked at 13 percent in July and then fell back to 10 percent in August. So she鈥檚 losing support to Perry too.
Third, there鈥檚 Ron Paul, who finished third in the latest Gallup survey, with 13 percent. That鈥檚 up from his fourth-place finish in July. He鈥檚 the only other GOP candidate who gained in Gallup鈥檚 new survey 鈥� vaulting him ahead of Ms. Bachmann.
(OK, Rick Santorum was up a point, but he鈥檚 only got three percent of the vote, and that could just be a margin-of-error thing.)
Paul appears to be the young Republicans鈥� choice. He鈥檚 the leader among the 18-to-29 GOP demographic, taking 29 percent of that vote. He only gets 4 percent of the over-65 vote, however. That age inversion is kind of ironic 鈥� Paul, after all, is himself the oldest Republican running.
