According to the survey, the liberty-minded Dr. Paul is essentially tied with Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich in a four-way race. With about a four-percent plus or minus margin of error, 20 percent of likely caucus goers said they supported Cain, followed by Paul at 19 percent. Support for Romney was at 18 percent, while Gingrich came in at 17 percent.
The survey results provided even more encouraging data for Paul backers: His supporters are the most committed of any candidate’s. Paul actually leads in the poll among respondents who said their minds were made up — one-third of pro-Paul supporters say they won't change their minds. Less than 17 percent of Cain supporters, meanwhile, said their decision was final.
With two-thirds of poll respondents saying they had been reached by his campaign, Paul is also leading in the number of Iowa voters contacted. And among voters who supported the Texas Congressman in 2008, about 70 percent are still backing him. Romney, by comparison, barely held on to 40 percent of his supporters from the last election.
There are many reasons why Paul supporters are so ardent. “He doesn’t want to raise taxes on us middle- and low-income people,” said poll respondent Sarah Stang, a retired teacher who backed Paul four years ago.
The Federal Reserve is a big issue too, Stang told pollsters, noting that she “loves” Paul’s challenges to the central bank. “They have way too much power,” she explained. “They should let the marketplace do what it’s supposed to.”
As Thomas Eddlem noted in a recent piece for The New American, Paul has several other important factors in his favor, chief among them: making Obama a one-term President by preventing a possible third-party run by any number of candidates who would ensure that the GOP loses the race.
Of course, Paul’s consistent voting record against bailouts and crony capitalism — which none of the other top contenders can match — is also likely to play well among conservative voters. And while Paul has all of that in his favor, all three of the other top candidates in Iowa have big problems to overcome, the poll showed.
Cain, a former radio host and businessman, is facing a growing sexual-harassment scandal that does not seem to be fading away. Less than a third of poll respondents believed his denials, and support for Cain has dropped by more than three percent in recent weeks. His position as the former chief of the Federal Reserve in Kansas City certainly won’t help him among the growing number of conservatives outraged by the central bank and its trillions of dollars in bailouts.
Gingrich, of course, has had three wives and at least one extramarital affair. Almost half of respondents said they would rule out a candidate over issues like that. He is also widely recognized as an "insider" despite recently adopting talking points from Paul.
Then there is Romney, long touted by the establishment as the front-runner. But even his supporters aren’t particularly fond of him.
Romney’s never-ending flip flopping, not to mention his Massachusetts version of ObamaCare, known among critics as “Romneycare,” will not help his campaign among conservatives. Almost 60 percent of respondents said his support for the health-insurance mandate meant they would rule him out.
“In Iowa, it’s long been a two-person race between Romney and someone else,” said Ann Selzer, president of the polling firm used by Bloomberg. “It is now a four-person race between Romney and three someone elses.”
The other candidates come in well below the top four, with Rep. Michele Bachmann garnering a meager five percent and Texas Gov. Rick Perry coming in at seven percent. About three percent of respondents backed former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum. And former Utah Gov. John Huntsman, who served in the Obama administration before hitting the campaign trail, came in last at one percent.
Though Michele Bachmann managed to squeak out a victory over Paul in the important Iowa straw poll last summer, her support is fading quickly. And with Iowa caucuses less than two months away, political analysts are paying close attention to what happens in the state.
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Photo of Ron Paul: AP Images
