It seems that Herman Cain is beginning to experience some backlash following the allegations of sexual harassment issued against him. New numbers from an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released this evening show that the percentage of voters who have a negative view of the Georgia business executive has almost doubled in the past month.
The only good news for Cain is that he is still running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney. Cain has held onto the 27 percent support he enjoyed in the last poll, taken in early October. But Romney has caught up to him, polling at 28 percent this month, up five points from October.
Newt Gingrich, as he has in most recent polls, knocked Rick Perry out of the third-place position. Gingrich gained five points since October, when he was in fifth place, and is now polling with 13 percent support. Perry and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, find themselves tied with 10 percent support each. That’s a six-point drop since October for Perry, when he had a third-place showing with 16 percent of the vote.
The poll shows that Perry would be trounced by Romney in a one-on-one contest, polling 33 percent to Romney’s 62 percent.
The NBC/WSJ survey was taken from Nov. 2-5, after the allegations against Cain had first surfaced but before today’s dramatic New York press conference.
Only 18 percent of respondents viewed Cain negatively in October, a number that has nearly doubled this month, to 35 percent. While his negative ratings doubled, his positive ratings slipped from 24 percent in October to 23 percent now.
Still, in a head-to-head match-up, Romney and Cain come out just about tied, with 49 percent of respondents voting for Romney and 48 percent voting for Cain.
