Rick Perry leads Mitt Romney by 12 points, surges to front of the pack in latest Gallup poll

Republican presidential candidate Texas Governor Rick Perry speaks at a "Politics and Eggs" breakfast in Bedford, New Hampshire August 17, 2011. REUTERS/Brian Snyder (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)

Texas Governor Rick Perry has leapfrogged former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and the rest of the GOP field in a new poll of GOP voters conducted by Gallup, receiving 29 percent of the vote in a national survey of 1,040 Republicans and conservative-leaning independents.

Romney, who had been the presumed Republican frontrunner for many weeks, has seen his support drop by one-third since June. The low-profile campaign he has launched is sure to come under question among political experts now that he is lagging behind Perry.

Elderly Republicans and those living in the South strongly favor Perry to Romney, while liberal and moderate conservatives tend to support the two candidates equally.

The survey shows that the Iowa straw poll was overshadowed by Perry’s official entry into the 2012 presidential race.

Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann did not receive a boost from her first-place finish in the Iowa straw poll, dropping three percentage points since the previous Gallup survey.

While Bachmann came in fourth at 10 percent, two-time presidential Ron Paul did receive a boost for finishing 152 points behind her in the straw poll results. Paul received 13 percent of the vote and climbed to third in the GOP field.

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