Cain Has Most "Intense" Support Among Republicans

The Republican field of presidential candidates is large (and may grow larger), and no one has yet been able to separate themselves from the pack and take the lead as the favorite. Most pundits had thought Mitt Romney would have been the clear favorite by now, but he's having problems with the teabaggers (over RomneyCare and his mormonism) and while he has finished first in several polls, there always seems to be a couple of other candidates within the margin of error of the poll.

The Gallup Poll has started doing what they call the Positive Intensity Score on all the candidates, with the theory being that the more intense a candidates support is the better chance they have of retaining their supporters and staying in the race. A low intensity score would indicate a candidate is having trouble attracting hard-core support (and could lose there support upon hitting a bump in the road.

Gallup arraives at the Positive Intensity Score by taking the number of people who strongly favor a candidate and subtracting the number of people who strongly dislike that candidate. Only those familiar with the candidate are polled. Here are the latest Positive Intensity Scores (from a survey taken of 1,500 Republicans from May 23rd through June 5th):

Herman Cain...............+25
Michele Bachmann...............+18
Mitt Romney...............+17
Tim Pawlenty...............+14
Sarah Palin...............+13
Rick Santorum...............+11
Jon Huntsman...............+7
Ron Paul...............+7
Newt Gingrich...............+4
Gary Johnson...............+2

Cain has gained 19 points in his name recognition, but this has not hurt his intensity level among supporters, which remains the highest of any candidate so far. Mean while Gingrich keeps sliding -- since he had an intensity score of +9 a couple of weeks ago.