Usual Suspects Still Packed Closely Atop 2012 GOP Field

Former Govs. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Sarah Palin (R-AK), Mitt Romney (R-MA), and Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)
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Of all the undeclared candidates presumed to be running for the Republican presidential nomination, four names continue to cluster at the top of the field: Huckabee, Palin, Romney, and Gingrich.

That trend continued Tuesday with the release of a new PPP poll of registered Republican voters that shows those four candidates still bunched closely at the front of the pack. And while there has been some shifting of percentages, there is no significant movement to show anyone considerably pulling ahead or slipping behind.

In the poll, Huckabee squeaked out a slim lead with 18%, followed by Romney at 17%, and Palin at 16%. Gingrich trailed a little further back at 14% but, that’s still within the poll’s 4.1% margin of error of the lead.

While none of those candidates have officially declared that they’ll run in 2012, Gingrich and Romney have made the most noise about presidential bids. Gingrich recently launched an exploratory website — aptly called NewtExplore2012 — while Romney has been stumping across the country and lining up staff members.

In an interesting series of contests, PPP surveyed the race without Palin, Huckabee, or either of them. In each case, Gingrich gained the most from those two candidates hypothetically sitting on the sidelines.

Without Huckabee in the race, Romney led with 19%, though Gingrich pulled to within two points at 17%, with Palin on the middle at 18%. Without Palin, Huckabee led at 22%, with Gingrich then running in second at 20%.

Without Palin and Huckabee, Gingrich tied Romney at 24%, pulling the conservative support that would otherwise have gone to the missing players.

While that’s a fair amount of speculation with about a year to go before the first primary, it still shows how a deep field of conservative candidates could benefit Romney if conservative voters split their support — or how a field light on conservative candidates could work against him.

The PPP poll was conducted March 10-13 among 559 registered Republican voters. It has a margin of error of 4.1%.

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