Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney all achieve roughly equal results against Barack Obama in a new Gallup pollof registered voters which asks them to choose between Obama and one of these four GOP presidential candidates. Although Romney had the best results, with 48 percent of registered voters saying they would vote for him against Obama, the difference between his result and the result of Bachmann and Paul, the two candidates who placed first and second in the Ames Straw Poll, was within the poll’s margin of error. Obama’s approval rating, which Gallup estimates at 40 percent, is surpassed by the percentage of registered voters who say they would vote for him over one of the four leading GOP candidates. Obama does best against Bachmann and worst against Romney, although again the advantage is not statistically significant.
The poll also suggests a small but significant group of Republicans who are displeased with the Ames Straw Poll winners and would vote for Obama over Paul or Bachmann. While Perry and Romney received 92 and 91 percent support among Republicans in a matchup against Obama, Bachmann and Paul received 86 and 82 percent, respectively. Eleven percent of Republicans would rather vote for Obama than Ron Paul, compared to 6 percent for Obama versus Perry or Romney.
Among independent and Democratic voters, the GOP candidates all receive about the same level of support relative to Obama, except for Bachmann, who does slightly worse among independent voters.
Here are the poll results:
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