In one sense, a new poll from ABC News and the Washington Post shows something that’s been known for weeks: businessman Herman Cain is a top contender for the GOP nomination nomination according to the numbers. But the ABC/WaPo survey, conducted after a Politico article appeared detailing sexual harassment allegations made against Cain while he was running the National Restaurant Association (claims he has denied) also shows something new about his support — it’s showing real strength.
Cain is within one point of the lead in the GOP primary, with former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney at 24 percent of the GOP electorate and Cain at 23. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is at 13 and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 12. The rest of the field is in single digits.
However, the real surprise is that the allegations levied against Cain have not moved the dial very much for Republican voters. By many accounts, Cain hasn’t handled the response to the allegations particularly well — his story about what happened has changed over the week as he brings out new bits of information about the allegations seemingly in each interview that he does. But the data seems to show that for all the media’s consternation about the moving target that is Cain’s response, many if not most GOP voters just don’t find what Cain did (as currently defined) as particularly serious.
From the analysis of ABC pollster Gary Langer:
Fifty-five percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they do not regard the allegation of sexual misconduct as a serious matter. But while 22 percent of Cain’s own supporters call it serious, that jumps to 44 percent among those who aren’t backing Cain. Among Romney’s supporters it’s similar, at 49 percent.
As noted, it makes a difference. Among all leaned Republicans, 69 percent say the controversy surrounding Cain does not make a difference in their vote; 23 percent say it makes them less likely to support him. That “less likely” number, however, shrinks to 3 percent among those who see it as not serious — but swells to 52 percent of those who do see it as a serious matter.
If the number of Republicans that are less likely to vote for Cain remains at only 23 percent, and he responds effectively to the controversy, he may be about to ride it out. Of course, this is the second national poll to come out after the scandal hit (Rasmussen came out with the first) and the story is far from over. There have been no public statements yet from any of the accusers, which may happen on Friday.
Here is the TPM Poll Average of the national GOP primary.
The ABC/WaPo poll used 438 live telephone interviews with leaned Republican adults conducted from October 31st to November 3rd. The poll has a sampling error of 5.5 percent.
