President 2012 GOP Poll Watch: Romney 23% Vs. Cain 19% Vs. Paul 13% Vs. Perry 10%

Mitt Romney leads the field vying for the Republican presidential nomination but fewer than one in four of the party’s voters back him as a surging Herman Cain gains ground, according to Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, is holding on to his support but failing to increase it significantly, according to the survey, which also showed President Barack Obama facing deep unhappiness among voters about his performance.

Romney was backed by 23 percent of Republicans in the October poll, up from 20 percent in the most recent comparable Reuters/Ipsos poll carried out in June.

Cain, a businessman who has emerged as a surprise front-runner after proposing a radical tax reform, nearly tripled his support among Republicans in the same period, leaping to 19 percent from 7 percent four months ago.

“In the Republican presidential primary, everybody still says Mitt Romney’s the front-runner,” Ipsos research director Chris Jackson said. “And he is … but he’s certainly not any sort of dominant front-runner.”

Texas congressman Ron Paul was third with 13 percent and Texas Governor Rick Perry fourth, with 10 percent.

Supporters of Sarah Palin, who announced last week she would not run for president, have not coalesced behind a single candidate, the survey found.

The poll was conducted October 6-10, before a debate on economic issues on Tuesday night in which Romney and Cain had strong performances and Perry failed to make up the ground he lost when he stumbled through two previous debates.

“I think Rick Perry’s boomlet probably really peaked in August and has subsided,” Jackson said.

The margin of error for Republicans among the 1,113 people polled was 4.8 percentage points, leaving Romney and Cain in a virtual tie.

The poll was pre-debate and memorializes Rick Perry’s crash and burn.

For now, Mitt Romney continues as the front-runner, as does the conventional wisdom indicates.