Herman Cain back to second place? Perhaps those who can’t remember the 2012 GOP primary horse race history are doomed to repeat it.
The latest turn in the Republican primary is back toward Herman Cain, who is showing up in a slew of poll results either tied with or ahead of former (as of this writing) frontrunner Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has suffered some losses over the last ten days. Of course, the GOP has been here before with Cain: he hit the mid to high teens in national polls behind Romney before the summer and a surge by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), before she herself fell back into the pack and is now hovering around 3 to 4 percent in nationwide surveys.
And before it even begins, let’s make this clear: Herman Cain’s rise is probably less about Herman Cain. It’s about the fickle GOP field grasping for a credible challenger to former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney.
Cain’s good poll performances really started last week after his surprise victory at the P5 Florida straw poll, coming on the heels of Perry’s flop in the FOX/Google GOP debate in Orlando. Cain notched a third place finish in a Fox News poll conducted after the debate, only two percent behind Perry who had let the top spot slip to Romney. Those two pieces of evidence started off a somewhat media-driven Cainmentum, which has reached a fever pitch.
Monday brought the release of a poll from public opinion firm War Room Logistics, who had conducted a poll of Florida before the debate and then another after to gauge the Republican electorate in the state. The results couldn’t have been more stark: before the debate, Romney and Perry were tied at 25 percent support. After the debate, Perry fell off the map. He went down to nine percent, with Romney taking 28. Cain went from merely five percent in the first poll to 24 in the second, sapping support from Perry and to much lesser extent Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). It was an epic drop after Perry had legitimately put in effort to win the P5 straw poll and run television ads in the state.
Very early on Tuesday came a major shift in the public polling. ABC News and the Washington Post put out a survey that showed Perry and Cain tied nationally, with Romney out in front. The really damning evidence was within some of the more probing questions that the news organizations asked about who among the GOP candidates Republicans were getting to know and who they liked. Gallup had previously shown that Cain was one of the most liked candidates among the GOP, but also one of the most unknown. ABC/WaPo really drove the point home: for Herman Cain, 47 percent of Republican voters say the more they hear, the more they like, versus 18 percent who say they sour on him the more they hear. The trend is the precise opposite for Perry. Only 30 percent said that they more they hear about Perry the more they like him, versus 44 percent who like him less.
Secondly, Cain is capturing the actual primary audience. Meaning, those Republicans paying close attention to their nominating process and the very conservative Tea Party wing of the party. From the ABC/WaPo report:
Perry’s lost 36 points in the past month among Republicans who are following the election very closely; Cain’s gained 30 points in this same group. Cain now wins 36 percent support from those paying very close attention, vs. 24 percent for Romney, 12 percent for Perry.
Perry, attacked in the debates for calling Social Security a failure and a Ponzi scheme, has lost 35 points among senior citizens. Criticized by conservatives for signing an order mandating a vaccine for pre-teen girls, and for offering in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants, he’s lost 35 points among strong supporters of the Tea Party political movement and 27 points among very conservative Republicans; Cain’s gained 25 and 16 points in these groups, respectively.
Cain also has gained 22 points among Republican-leaning independents. He’s tied with Romney among leaned Republicans who’ve watched the debates, with 27 and 26 percent support, vs. 14 percent for Perry. And leaned Republicans who’ve watched the debates say the more they hear about Cain the more they like him by a vast 70-12 percent.
That idea has very obviously affected Perry’s stance in the race, as matchup polling over the last few days has shown Perry having trouble making headway in a race with Obama, as opposed to Romney, who continues to present a formidable challenge. Indeed, within the same ABC/WaPo poll, Romney edges the President by a point in a national matchup, while Perry loses by five.
So Cain’s up and Perry’s down. But what this data really proves is that the active base of the party is really swinging the results wildly, and now just in the “conventional wisdom” way that the base of a party usually decides its nominee.
