Mike Huckabee Leading But Sarah Palin Steady

10/29/2009, by Proloy Bhatta

HIGHLIGHTS

• Huckabee 32%
• Palin 25%
• Romney 21%

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll, Oct. 16-18, 2009.

Mitt Romney is in Virginia campaigning for McDonnell's to win the Governor race. Smart move. With McDonnell likely to win, Romney is basically putting his support behind a winner.

With Palin's book "Going Rogue" about to be released, she has been getting a lot of media attention. And who can get better than Oprah!

But it is Mike Huckabee that continues to lead the Republican 2012 field with 32%. Palin and Romney are a respectable 25% and 21% respectively. Tim Pawlenty was the only other candidate to be included in this poll and he received just 5% support.

Palin continues to do well among Republican primary voters but despite that, 7-in-10 Americans say that she is not qualified to be president. Despite having been tied or in the lead for much of Obama's presidency, Romney appears to have given up that post to Huckabee.

CNN had the following to say:

"Huckabee appears to have more support among Republicans than Palin and her unfavorable rating among all Americans is twice as high as Huckabee's," Holland says. "Palin may attract a lot of attention but the GOP may be looking elsewhere for their frontrunner."

The CNN poll also shows Palin has lost support among independent voters over the last year, drawing approval from 41 percent of them now, 10 points lower than that group's approval last year. She fares even worse with self-identified moderate voters, drawing only a 34 percent approval rating.