Chart based on
PPP poll of Florida
Republicans released June 23, 2011
PPP has a
new poll in Florida showing Mitt Romney leading the field. Romney clocks in at 27%, ahead of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann who tied in second place with 17% apiece.
But while Romney should be pleased to be in the lead, the poll shows that he may have trouble expanding it. PPP asked voters who they would support if Palin were to bow out. Romney maintained the lead, but picked up just 2 points. Michele Bachmann (who finished in second with 22%) and Herman Cain picked up a combined nine points.
As you can see in the chart in this post, Bachmann and Cain each picked up twice as many Palin supporters as Romney. Between the two of them, they take more than the other five candidates PPP polled combined, winning about 56% of her support. (Huntsman didn't get any bump, so he's not on the chart.)
This isn't good news for Mitt Romney, especially given that he's the most well-known of the candidates to Republican voters. Just 14% had no opinion about him compared with 20% for Bachmann and 32% for Cain. Nonetheless, Palin voters avoid Mitt Romney like the plague and flocked to the other candidates.
Romney's inability to win over Palin voters is yet another sign that the GOP primary is nowhere near as settled as conventional wisdom suggests. Republicans haven't even really started criticizing him in a major way, but already we see signs that as candidates drop out, their supporters won't flip to Romney's camp in significant numbers.
That's something Romney's going to need to figure out, otherwise when this primary is over, we'll all be talking about the Romney ceiling and his inability to build on his early lead.