Obama 44%, Paul 34%

A month ago, they were neck-and-neck. Now President Obama has a 10-point lead over Texas Congressman Ron Paul in a hypothetical Election 2012 matchup.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds that Obama earns 44% support to Paul’s 34%. Thirteen percent (13%) prefer some other candidate, and nine percent (9%) remain undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

This time last month, the two men were essentially even shortly after Paul’s second-place finish in the high-profile Ames, Iowa straw poll. The president posted a narrow 41% to 37% lead over the congressman in July.

While Obama now carries 79% of the Democratic vote, Paul picks up just 61% of his fellow Republicans. The president leads 40% to 33% among voters not affiliated with either of the major parties, but 27% of that group favor another candidate or are undecided given this matchup.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney remains the Republican hopeful who runs best against the president, with the two candidates essentially tied. Texas Governor Rick Perry, still the frontrunner in Rasmussen Reports’ most recent survey of the race for the 2012 GOP nomination, still trails the president by single digits.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls).  Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on September 24-25, 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.