Perry Slumps in Polls, but Not to Romney’s Gain
fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com
There have been three scientific national polls released of Republican voters since the Sept. 22 debate: a CNN poll that was conducted over the last weekend, and polls by Fox News and Economist/YouGov released on Wednesday.
The polls suggest that Rick Perry’s struggles in the debate — amplified by a storm of skepticism among influential Republicans — have taken a bite out of his numbers. But the spoils seem to have gone mainly to other conservative candidates in the race, rather than Mr. Romney.
I’ve taken an average of the polls, with one slight wrinkle. The YouGov poll included Chris Christie, Sarah Palin and Rudolph W. Giuliani as options, and they collectively received 29 percent of the vote. Since none of those candidates are especially likely to run, I have re-allocated their votes based on the distribution of second-place votes in the poll.