Last week we learned from Pew Research that Republican voters who are paying attention seem to favor undeclared candidate Rick Perry over fragile frontrunner Mitt Romney. Today, via Rasmussen polling, we're continuing to see the Texas governor breathing down the neck of the more-jobs-or-bust candidate. According to the polling outfit's nationally representative survey of likely primary voters, 22 percent favor Romney and 18 percent favor Perry. But as The Hill's GOP 12 points out, Perry is in command of the important Tea Party bloc: "He's at 28% with [Michele] Bachmann trailing at 22% and Romney at 16%." Rasmussen also has an interesting gender breakdown among support for the three contenders: "Perry, Romney and Bachmann are closely grouped together as the favorites of male primary voters. Among female primary voters, Romney leads the other two by 10 points."

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Erik Hayden