Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are locked at the top among likely Republican primary voters in Iowa, according to a Bloomberg News poll released on Tuesday.
Cain leads the field with 20 percent, followed by Paul with 19 percent, Romney with 18 percent and Gingrich with 17 percent, a statistical tie within the poll’s four point margin of error.
The poll’s results provide good news for Cain, who has seen his support dip in national polls as he battles allegations of harassment.
Still, only 29 percent of those polled by Bloomberg said they believed Cain’s denials, 37 percent said they were waiting for more information, and 25 percent said they were skeptical of his defense or didn’t believe him. Cain does better among men than women by a margin of 23 percent to 15 percent.
Recent national polls show that Gingrich has benefitted from the controversy surrounding Cain, and some even have the former Speaker of the House in the lead or a close second. Voters are now likely to take a closer look at Gingrich’s past, and some have speculated that this could be a problem for the surging candidate.
The rest of the Republican field continues to struggle to gain traction. Rick Perry received only seven percent of the support, Michele Bachmann five percent, Rick Santorum three percent, and Jon Huntsman one percent.
But with the Iowa caucuses less than two months away, the poll shows that voters are still not settled on a candidate. 60 percent said they weren’t definitively committed to their top candidate and another 10 percent were still undecided.
The Bloomberg Iowa poll was taken on Nov. 10 to 12 and has a 4 point margin of error.