Obama 43%, Perry 37%

While Rick Perry continues to take a hammering in the media and from his opponents for the Republican presidential nomination, President Obama’s single-digit lead over the Texas governor remains virtually unchanged over the past month.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows Obama capturing 43% of the vote, while Perry’s support stands at 37%. Seven percent (7%) like another candidate in the race, and 12% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Last week, the president posted a virtually identical 44% to 38% lead over Perry, and two weeks ago, he led his GOP rival 46% to 39%.  In late August, Perry edged Obama 44% to 41%.  A week before that, the two candidates were similarly matched with Obama slightly ahead 43% to 40%.

Although Perry is the frontrunner in the Republican race in the most recent Rasmussen Reports survey, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is still the GOP hopeful who matches up best against the president, with the two continuing to run neck-and-neck as they have for weeks.  Georgia businessman Herman Cain, like Perry, is now within single digits of Obama, but Texas Congressman Ron Paul has fallen 10 points behind.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is getting the big push from some to enter the race, and he, too, runs nearly even with the president.

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.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on September 30-October 1, 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.