Michele Bachmann may be a joke of a candidate,
but her candidacy is no joke
Whether or not she's a serious person might be up for debate, but as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Michele Bachmann is as serious as serious gets, according to three new polls that show her national popularity among Republicans on the rise and that she's actually leading in two states.
For starters, Gallup is out with a new national poll showing Bachmann tied with Herman Cain at 24 in their Positive Intensity Score index, a measurement of the popularity among Republicans of candidates vying for the GOP nomination. Bachmann has a big edge over Cain, however: she's better known.
The Positive Intensity Score only reflects opinions of people who know about the candidate, and the more Republicans get to know about Bachmann, the stronger her intensity score has gotten. Her score is as high as it has been at any point in the campaign and she is now known by more people than at any point in the campaign. Other candidates, like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and even Herman Cain, have tended to get less popular as they become better known by voters outside of their core base—but not Bachmann.
Here's a chart from Gallup with all the candidates:
Bachmann's strength on the Positive Intensity Score revealed itself in the
recent Des Moines Register poll showing her tied for the lead in Iowa with Mitt Romney, and
two new polls from PPP show that poll wasn't a fluke.
The PPP surveys show that with Palin out of the race, Bachmann leads the 2012 field in both Montana and Oregon. She takes 29% in Oregon to Romney's 28% and in Montana she takes 25% to Romney's 22%. Every other candidate trails both Bachmann and Romney by double digits.
The poll also showed that if Palin runs, it could benefit Romney. He maintains his second place spot in Montana, but in Oregon, he moves into first with Palin taking a chunk of support from Bachmann. But the Oregon numbers reveal once again that there may be a Mitt Romney ceiling: Romney's support is 28% whether or not she runs, suggesting he's got virtually no ability to win support from conservative Republicans who would back Palin.