Poll: As Thompson's star fades

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fred Thompson got into the Republican race with great expectations. And sure enough, just after he got in last month, polling showed Thompson and Rudy Giuliani were just about tied for front-runner.

But since then, Thompson's taken a lot of flak for a lackluster campaign from party activists in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Support for his campaign has also wavered. The new CNN poll by the Opinion Research Corporation released Tuesday shows Thompson's support dropping -- now at 19 percent, down from 27 percent in September.

He's now running second, slightly ahead of Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who has 17 percent. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, still leads with 27 percent.

Of the remaining Republican presidential candidates, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney received support from13 percent of the Republicans polled, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee received 5 percent, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California received 3 percent, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas received 2 percent, Sen. Brownback of Kansas received 1 percent and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado received 1 percent.

The poll's margin of error for the Republican race is plus or minus 5 percentage points.