The president and the maverick are running almost dead even in a hypothetical 2012 election matchup.

Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul earns 38% of the vote to President Obama’s 39% in the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters. Fourteen percent (14%) like some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) remain undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Just a month ago, Obama posted a 41% to 37% lead over Paul, who ran second to Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann in the recent high-profile Ames Straw Poll in Iowa.

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The match-up surveys of 1,000 Likely Voters were conducted August 15-16, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error for the surveys is +/- 3% with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.