Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are tied for first place in a Public Policy Polling poll of likely Texas Republican primary voters. However, the bigger story in this poll is how far Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) has fallen in Texas since last fall.
Mr. Romney garnered 24 percent of the votes and Mr. Gingrich pulled in 23 percent of the votes. Back in September, Mr. Perry was the front-runner in the Lone Star State with 49 percent of the votes. After several poor debate performances and multiple misstatements, Mr. Perry is in third place with 18 percent of the votes.
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is in fourth place with 15 percent of the votes and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) is in fifth place with 12 percent of the votes. In a head-to-head matchup with Mr. Romney, Mr. Paul is the least likely of all the remaining Republican candidates to defeat the Bain Capital co-founder (64-25). In fact, Mr. Santorum is the only candidate who could defeat Mr. Romney in a head-to-head matchup among Republican voters in Texas (45-42).
“These numbers have to be seen as an embarrassment for Rick Perry,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling, in a press release. “It’s pretty bad when you get to the point where you’re not even in the top two in your own home state,” Mr. Debnam added.
In an effort to jump start his campaign, Mr. Perry asked Mr. Romney to make his tax records public at Monday night’s Fox News debate. “Mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so the people of this country can see how you made your money, and I think that’s a fair thing,” Mr. Perry said at the South Carolina debate.
In response to pressure from his fellow Republican candidates, Mr. Romney told reporters in Florence, South Carolina that he plans on releasing his tax records. “What’s the effective rate I’ve been paying? It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything,” Mr. Romney posited.
Public Policy Polling surveyed 559 likely voters in the Texas Republican primary from January 12th to January 15th. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
