Obama 42%, Johnson 27%

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson who recently made his first Republican debate appearance  earns the lowest level of support against President Obama out of all the 2012 GOP hopefuls. 

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows Obama with 42% support from Likely Voters, while Johnson picks up 27% of the vote.  Eighteen percent (18%) prefer some other candidate, and another 13% are undecided.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

In May, the president held a nearly identical 43% to 27% advantage over Johnson. 

“As with almost all the early 2012 match-up polling, the results say more about President Obama than they do about the Republican challenger,” explains Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. “Whether it’s Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Chris Christie or Rick Santorum as the Republican hopeful, the president’s vote total ends up in the mid-40s.”

Among Republican voters, only 51% favor Johnson in a matchup with the president.  Seventy-six percent (76%) of Democrats support Obama.  The incumbent leads Johnson by a better than two-to-one-margin among voters not affiliated with either political party. 

A Generic Republican candidate has now led the president by single digits in weekly polling for nearly three months.  Rasmussen Reports updates that number every Tuesday at 3 pm Eastern. The president’s Job Approval rating is updated daily.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on October 4-5, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.