Polling Data Shows Sarah Palin Trails Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney for 2012
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 20, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Rasmussen Reports has released more details of its recent poll showing pro-life former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin trailing former governors Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination in 2012. The eventual GOP nominee will likely take on pro-abortion President Barack Obama.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s forthcoming autobiography has been at the top of the Amazon book charts for weeks and she still resonates with pro-life advocates.
But the new Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveying finds Palin losing handily in face-to-face match-ups with her two likeliest challengers for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Although all of the candidates will compete together, the results of the one-on-one matchups show Palin is vulnerable.
Among likely Republican primary voters, Palin now trails pro-life former Arkansas governor-turned-Fox-TV-host Mike Huckabee by 20 points — 55% to 35%. When matched up against Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who ran as a pro-life candidate in 2008, Palin loses by 15 — 52% to 37%.
Support for Huckabee and Romney against Palin is nearly the same among both men and women.
The one-on-one matchup follows Rasmussen’s release of the results of how Republicans viewed all of the potential presidential candidates pitted together.
When given a list of five candidates and asked who they would vote for in 2012, 29% of Republican voters nationwide say Huckabee, while 24% prefer Romney and 18% Palin.
That is a difference from July, when the poll found a three-way tie and 25% said Romney, 24% Palin and 22% Huckabee. The changes show Huckabee essentially picking up the support Palin has lost and Romney staying about the same.
Looking at other potential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is pro-life, gets 14% of the vote while pro-life Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty gets 4%. Six percent of Republican voters prefer some other candidate while 7% remain undecided.
Rasmussen also notes some other problems for Palin.
"Twenty-one percent (21%) of primary voters also say Palin is the GOP candidate they would least like to see win the party’s presidential nomination. Just nine percent (9%) say the same of Romney, and eight percent (8%) feel that way about Huckabee," the polling firm notes.
"In early July, 40% of Republican voters nationwide said Palin’s decision to resign as governor of Alaska hurt her chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination in 2012," it added.
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