Mitt Romney bolstered his status as the clear early frontrunner in the GOP presidential field, as two polls conducted just ahead of Monday night’s debate show Romney pulling away from the pack.
In each poll, Romney earned the support of one-fourth of respondents, giving him comfortable leads over the rest of the field. And in each poll, a candidate who will not be participating in the debate and who has not made a final decision about a potential candidacy claimed second place: Sarah Palin.
In a Gallup poll released Monday, Romney came out on top at 24%, a seven point increase from where he stood last month. That boost gave him a robust eight point lead over Palin, who came in at 16%, and who had trailed Romney by only two points last month. Former pizza chain CEO Herman Cain placed third at 9%, followed by Ron Paul with 7%, and then Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum with 6%. Newt Gingrich, who just a few months ago typically finished in the top tier, dropped down to 8th place at 5% after a bruising month of gaffes and bad press.
Romney also garnered 24% in a CNN poll released Monday, though Palin came much closer to him there with 20%. Rudy Giuliani — who was not included in the Gallup poll — took third at 12%, followed by Cain and Gingrich at 10% each.
There’s been little movement within the field overall since the start of the year. However, the post-flirtation departure of Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee from the race clearly established Romney as the frontrunner.
By contrast to Romney’s recent surge, Newt Gingrich has begun to tail off following his disastrous campaign rollout, which suffered its latest shock last week when a number of high level staffers bailed on the campaign in unison. The Gallup poll could be telling of where Gingirch has truly fallen after that blow as it, unlike the CNN survey, was conducted after news broke that Gingrich’s aides had abandoned ship.
The tightly packed cluster of candidates in the middle of the pack could make for some fireworks in Monday’s GOP debate, particularly if the lower-profile candidates go on the offensive against Romney in an attempt to erode his support. Pawlenty gave an early telegraph of his punches when he took a dig at Romney in a Fox News interview Sunday, calling the national health care overhaul, “Obamneycare.”
The Gallup poll was conducted June 8-11 among 851 adults nationwide, and it has a 4.0% margin of error. The CNN poll surveyed 433 adults from June 3-7, and has a 4.5% margin of error.
