Obama in statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama

/ CBS/Getty Images

President Obama is statistically tied with each of four named Republican presidential candidates in the latest Gallup poll asking which candidate voters would choose if the election were held today. Among independent voters, the only candidate Mr. Obama beats is Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's suport was strongest, garnering 48 percent compared with Mr. Obama's 46 percent of registered voters asked.

Rick Perry, who announced his candidacy less than two weeks ago, tied Mr. Obama with 47 percent each.

Among registered voters, the president scored higher than Bachmann and Rep. Ron Paul, though both of those differences were still within the margin of error for the poll conducted August 17-18. Against Paul's 45 percent, Mr. Obama took 47 percent and compared to Bachmann's 44 percent, Mr. Obama garnered 48 percent.

Among independents, who are widely seen as the deciding factor in the actual election, Mr. Obama fared slightly worse. Romney garned 47 percent to Mr. Obama's 44 percent, while Perry took 46 percent to Mr. Obama's 44 percent.

Paul took 46 percent of independents versus Mr. Obama's 43 percent. Bachmann was the only candidate to lose among independents to Mr. Obama, who took 48 percent against the Minnesota Republican's 42 percent.

CBSNews.com special report: Election 2012

"Gallup research shows that these types of election measures at this stage in the campaign are not highly stable, and one can expect changes in the relative positioning of Obama and various GOP candidates in the months ahead," the polling organization said.

"With the first official votes for the Republican nomination more than five months away, and with the very real possibility that GOP candidates such as Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and George Pataki may jump into the race, much could still change as the election process unfolds," Gallup added, noting that Texas Governor George W. Bush led Vice President Al Gore 55 percent to 41 percent in August 1999. Gore garnered a slightly higher national popular vote total than Bush in the 2000 election.

The poll, conducted by telephone, of 1,026 adults, including 879 registered voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

14 Photos

The narrowing GOP presidential field

[obbcbs]

when the republicans choose someone, we will make sure the public knows their history of 'service'.

Perry: Texas has the lowest percentage of women in the first trimester who get medical care.
Texas has the highest percentage of people making minimum wage.
Texas has the highest percentage of children living under the poverty level.

Romney: shipped US jobs to China.
Romney's company Bain, took cash from companies and drove them into bankruptcy, Romney kept the cash. Now he says, MAYBE we should not have done that.

[magnumdr]

Nobody asked me. I would never vote for any Republican ever!

[moretruthnow]

This polling shows that a lot a people who consider themselves Independent are the people who watched Lou Dobbs and changed from being a republican. Real Independents are hard to find, but there are a lot of Democrats who would never vote for these republicans against sane policies and decent programs that help the elderly. The corporate agenda republicans have adopted over the wellbeing of the country will mean that republicans will lose a lot of seats and Democrats will pick up seats in the upcoming elections because Americans are fed up with the Grover Norquist pledging GOP against revenue to help the country recover.

[tsigili]

Anyone can beat Obama at this point. His "halo" has not just slipped.....it has fallen off, completely.

[kca124]

Lets just take all the money from the super rich. Anybody making over $40K per year, and give it to everyone else. That way, we can increase the unemployment rate to 80% and everyone can live off of the government. We can all go to work in the Soilent Green factories. And it will be just like the movie. Afterall, havent we finally reached idiocracy 500 years early?

[obbcbs]

soilent green was a company. you must think the GOP reports to the people. they have their hand out, and ask the companies what to do.

[kca124]

What is the relevance of this poll. Obama in a tie with 4 republicans means that if 3 of them were running against him, he would lose - and only one will be, so expect a landslide like Jimmy Carter experienced.

[abbe91]

You misunderstood "in a tie" ... Bush was in a tie with Kerry (not to mention his score against Al Gore).

[noloyalisti]

Dan keeps demonizing union workers when he owes everything he has to them. Maybe he wants to work 70-80 hours a week with no overtime like the good old days. As the unions go, so goes the middle class. If you don't like being in the middle class (and want to be poor) keep helping the millionaires and go after the unions.

[noloyalisti]

Wrong again dan, we tried to cut taxes on the rich (Bush Crime Family 2000) and we lost 10,000,000 jobs. Time to penalize the heck out of the corporations who do this. Time to use federal money to create good paying jobs union and otherwise. Only when people have money to spend based on good jobs will the economy recover. And we have to invest tax money in America. So wrong again.

[noloyalisti]

I think it is quite funny how the right wing corporate media keeps pretending we have a democracy with real elections here. Pathetic and incredible brainwashing of an entire population.

[karlejohn]

This Gallop poll is B. S. The Democrats will win the 2012 election by a higher margin than the 2008 election.

[david4673]

It isn't the only poll. The averages favor Obama by pretty wide margins, except With Romney and that is a slight margin. Intrade also has Obama favored, though his lead there has lessened.

Wait until the stats change and the right wing noise machine starts calling Gallup liberal and biased and only called Democrats.

[Dgunner]

It appears that either Obama is the only african american to have enough monetary support to run for president or the remaing african americans are smart enough to now when it is time to p-ss on the fire and cal in the dogs .