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Among active conservative voters, Rick Perry is still looking strong one week after his widely-panned debate performance. Mitt Romney has seen a significant boost, while Michele Bachmann’s attacks on Perry in the debate didn’t do much to slow her downward slide.
In the latest Daily Caller-ConservativeHome poll, which was fielded September 13-16, 2011, Perry’s numbers on electability held fairly constant from August and kept him atop the field, but it was Romney who arguably had the best month.
Perry’s percentage held steady at 46%, while Romney rose from 19.8% to 34.4% since August. We excluded Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan from the poll this month since the latter has said he’s not running, and Palin has not signaled her intentions clearly enough to warrant keeping her in the mix.
When it comes to the candidate respondents say would be their first choice, the results look like this for the top six:
Gingrich’s numbers are interesting. Lots of commentators thought he did well on the debate stage. Apparently, a fair number of voters did, too. One thing is clear: leaving Palin and Ryan out of the poll did nothing for Bachmann, who comes off as the biggest loser while her peers all fared much better.
We also asked who voters thought would do the best job on economy.
Romney is clearly the winner here. He has come off well in the past few debates when talking about the economy. Voters noticed. Cain's numbers also suggest his 9-9-9 plan and its rollout have gotten through to voters. Last month, Paul Ryan was 3rd on this question, so it appears that Romney and Cain have scooped up his supporters the most.
The poll was conducted among 671 conservative Republican voters, who are part of the Republican Panel, assembled for ConservativeHome by YouGov.
