Approval & Name Recognition Of GOP Candidates

The folks at the Gallup organization have released their latest appraisal of the Republican presidential candidates. Instead of asking voters which candidate they would vote for, they ask them who they recognize and who the approve or disapprove of (if they recognize them). Then they get what they call a Positive Intensity score by subtracting the disapprovals from the approvals. The idea is that the candidates with both the highest name recognition and the highest Positive Intensity Scores have the best chance of winning.

These latest results are based on Gallup's daily tracking of candidates between August 8th and August 21st. About 1,400 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were polled, and the survey has a 3 point margin of error. Here are the results:

NAME RECOGNITION

Sarah Palin...............97%
Rudy Giuliani...............91%
Mitt Romney...............86%
Newt Gingrich...............85%
Michele Bachmann...............83%
Ron Paul...............78%
Rick Perry...............67%
Rick Santorum...............51%
Herman Cain...............47%
Jon Huntsman...............40%

POSITIVE INTENSITY SCORE

Herman Cain...............28
Rick Perry...............22
Rudy Giuliani...............19
Michele Bachmann...............16
Mitt Romney...............14
Sarah Palin...............14
Ron Paul...............9
Rick Santorum...............7
Newt Gingrich...............4
Jon Huntsman...............2