A new poll shows businessman Herman Cain surging and Texas Gov. Rick Perry flailing in the GOP presidential nomination race in New Hampshire.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had 38 percent of the vote from likely GOP primary voters, according to the survey from the Institute of Politics at Harvard University and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.

Cain trailed Romney with 20 percent, followed by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) with 13 percent. Every other tested candidate received 5 percent or less — including Perry, who scored just 4 percent in the poll.

Patrick Griffin, a senior fellow at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, said in a release that the poll’s results are most telling for candidates not in the top tier.

“With Herman Cain showing surprising strength as the ‘Romney Alternative’ and a compressed primary schedule, Governor Perry may be running out of time in New Hampshire,” Griffin said.

The survey also noted that 20 percent of those polled said they had already met at least one of the presidential candidates. Romney also led the pack in that regard, meeting the most Granite State voters by 3-to-1 in the survey.

The survey polled 648 likely GOP primary voters in the Granite State from Oct. 2 to 6. The survey had a margin of error of 4.4 points.