Perry Losing Ground to Romney, Say Power Outsiders in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina

Rick Perry, who rained on Michele Bachmann's Iowa Straw Poll victory parade, apparently now is dealing with his own dark cloud, and its name is Mitt Romney.

Republican activists in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have been pulled to Romney over the past few weeks, and have been abandoning good feelings for Perry in droves, according to the latest HuffPost-Patch Power Outsiders survey in the early primary and caucus states. Romney has also gained a clear advantage over Perry on the critical question of electability.

This week's survey asked 160 Republican political activists, party officials and officeholders in Iowa and the two other early voting states how their opinions of presidential candidates Romney and Perry have changed over the last two to three weeks.

The results tell an unequivocal story: A majority (57 percent) say their impression of Perry has grown less favorable, while just 16 percent say it has become more favorable. The results are nearly reversed for Perry's rival. A majority (47 percent) say their impression of Romney has become more favorable, while only 13 percent say they think less of him.

There's a lot more to this story, which you can read here.

Power Outsiders is a Patch-Huffington Post project that surveys influential Republicans in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Details on responses about Romney and Perry as well as a full list of participants can be found here.