A new Gallup poll could be bittersweet news to former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, who is now enmeshed in a sexual harrassment scandal: it shows him as the only candidate whose image has improved. But the poll was taken before The Politico’s famous article about 1990s sexual harrassment allegations broke:
Herman Cain is the only candidate whose Positive Intensity Score has increased in comparison to Gallup’s initial measurement earlier this year. In fact, each of the eight candidates Gallup tracks began with scores in the double digits, but now only three remain in that range.
The current results are based on Oct. 17-30 Gallup Daily tracking interviews with more than 1,500 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. The candidates’ scores have stabilized in recent weeks, with no significant change in any candidate’s positive intensity since last week. The stability may not persist, however, as Cain is attracting scrutiny for allegations of sexual harassment while he was president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. All interviews in the most recent field period were conducted before that story broke. Gallup’s update on positive intensity next Tuesday will show whether the news is having an effect on Cain’s image among Republicans.
Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Perry have seen their images deteriorate the most since earlier this year. Perry and Bachmann saw increases in their positive intensity scores at earlier points in the campaign and ranked among the leaders for a time before fading. Now Bachmann’s score of 3 is lower than all other candidates’ scores except Huntsman’s -2. All of these candidates were less well-known at the time of their initial measurement but have made substantial gains in name recognition since.
The poll confirms what some analysts have begun to suggest about Gingrich:
Gingrich, who was well-known at the outset of the campaign, experienced a similar decline, dropping 16 percentage points from his initial Positive Intensity Score of 17 in March to 1 in July 18-31 polling. However, the former House speaker’s image has recovered of late, and it is now just slightly more negative than Gallup’s initial reading of him, and ties Mitt Romney for the second-highest score behind Cain.
AND:
The downward trend in candidate images is also evident in the candidates’ total favorable ratings — not taking strength of opinion into account as the Positive Intensity Score does, but more broadly assessing whether Republicans familiar with a candidate have a generally positive or negative view of him or her. Again, Cain is the only candidate whose favorable ratings have risen over the course of the campaign. Most of the rest have seen slight declines, with the largest declines for Huntsman and Santorum.
In recent weeks, Cain has maintained high Positive Intensity Scores as he has caught up with his rivals in name recognition. Now, 80% of Republicans are familiar with Cain. All other candidates are at or above 80% recognition, except Huntsman and Rick Santorum.
It’s unlikely that the scandal involving Cain will help his rating or have his ratings to up, even though many conservatives are now rallying to his side and in effect using the same arguments used to defend now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, even saying that this scandal is what they consider the same thing (merely politically motivated with women whose assertions cannot be trusted).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.