Rick Perry slips in the polls

Two polls released Tuesday show Texas Governor Rick Perry slipping in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Perry has lost about half his support over the last month. Among announced candidates, the poll found former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney leading with 25 percent. Perry was tied with former Godfather's Pizza executive Herman Cain at 16 percent. Over the last month, according to The Washington Post, support for Perry has dropped 13 points, while support for Cain has risen 12 points.

Behind the top three in the Washington Post-ABC News poll were Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) at 11 percent, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) both at seven percent. Former Senator Rick Santorum was at two percent, and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr. came in at one percent.

From the Post:

Perry’s support for the Texas policy of providing in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants appears to be a significant problem in the GOP race. About two-thirds of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say they are less likely to vote for a candidate who backs such a policy. Among tea party supporters, nearly eight in 10 say this position is a negative factor.

Politico reports that a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday has Perry in third place. The poll found Romney in first with 22 percent, and Cain in second with 17 percent. Perry had 14 percent.

Meanwhile, Public Policy Polling said Tuesday that in polls of Republican primary voters in three states — North Carolina, Nebraska and West Virginia — over the weekend, it found Cain leading in all of them, with Gingrich surging.

"The Republican race has always been pretty wide open, but never more so than it is now," PPP concluded. "The fact that Cain and Gingrich, pretty much given up for dead just a few weeks ago, could have this kind of poll surge is really indicative of how weak anyone's support is right now- very few Republican voters are strongly committed to a particular candidate and most of them can shift in a heart beat."