This is a list of nationwide public opinion polls that were conducted with respect to the Republican primaries for the 2012 United States presidential election. The persons named in the polls were either declared candidates, former candidates or received media speculation about their possible candidacy.
Eleven different people were at the top of a poll at one time or the other; these were (in chronological order of earliest poll lead):
Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum.
References
Nationwide opinion polling for the Republican Party 2012 presidential primaries Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA