Obama, Romney Running Neck-and-Neck, Including on Jobs and Economic Issues
As the general election campaign gets underway in earnest, President Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney find themselves locked in a tight race — not only when it comes to the overall vote but in how they are rated on the issues the public deems most important, according to a Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll conducted April 29-May 3.
Romney leads Obama by 48 percent to 47 percent, with 5 percent undecided. The margin of error is 3.1 points. Both are also only a point apart when it comes to those who say their decision on who to support is definite.
As other recent polls have shown, part of Romney’s strength is that he matches up evenly with Obama on two of the issues that voters rank the highest: jobs and the economy. Obama edges Romney by 48 percent to 46 percent on jobs, while Romney leads Obama 48 percent to 45 percent on the economy. The rest either answered “both,” neither” or “unsure.”
However, Obama leads Romney by double-digit margins in three areas: standing up for the middle class, foreign policy and sharing voters’ values.
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Obama Hits 50 Percent Job Approval Mark, Widens Lead over Romney
President Obama’s job approval rating is back at the 50 percent mark, and he also finds himself leading presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 42 percent, according to Gallup polling conducted April 21-23.
Gallup put the emphasis on the job approval figure because “all incumbent presidents since Eisenhower who were at or above 50% approval at the time of the election were re-elected.” Obama’s ratings had been in the mid-40s in the last three months.
As for Obama’s lead over Romney, Gallup said it was his biggest so far this year. An important factor was the mood of independent voters who, during the April 11-15 period, favored Romney by 45 percent to 39 percent, but now give Obama a very slight 45 percent to 43 percent edge. The margin of error is 3 points.
“Several key indicators of election outcomes, such as Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States and their confidence in the economy, are low from a historical perspective,” Gallup added. “However, they are improved from where they were late last year and early this year.”
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Romney’s Favorability Ratings Improve as He Puts the GOP Nomination Battle Behind Him
One of the problems Mitt Romney faced in national polls as the GOP nomination fight dragged on was his record low favorability ratings compared to past presidential candidates. But two new polls suggest that Romney’s image is improving now that he has locked up the primary race.
(Credit: Romney Campaign photo)
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted April 13-17 finds that 33 percent of those surveyed view Romney favorably while 36 percent regard him negatively — not great numbers, but better than March when 28 percent had a positive view of him compared to 39 percent who saw him negatively. (President Obama is seen favorably by 48 percent and unfavorably by 39 percent).
One factor driving the better numbers is that Republicans began to fall in behind Romney after his last competitive opponent, Rick Santorum, dropped out. The poll said that since then, Romney’s favorable rating among conservatives had risen from 22 percent last month to 41 percent. The poll also found that Romney was recovering strength among traditional Republican voters such as men in the South, white voters, white-collar voters, white working class voters, suburban voters and white Midwesterners.
Condoleeza Rice Top Choice Among Republicans for VP, But Tea Partiers Prefer Rubio
Former Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice is the top choice of Republicans to be Mitt Romney’s running mate, but if it were up to tea party movement supporters, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would be the vice presidential candidate, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted April 13-15.
Twenty-six percent of those surveyed picked Rice, who was followed by Rick Santorum at 21 percent, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rubio tied at 14 percent. The margin of error is 4.5 points.
But emblematic of the ideological divide in the party, Rubio is the pick of 22 percent of tea party supporters in the GOP, followed by Christie at 18 percent, with Rice and Santorum tied for third.
On the flip side when non-tea party Republicans are asked, Rice’s support goes up to 36 percent.
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As Support for U.S. Presence in Afghanistan Hits New Low, Romney Faces Dilemma on His Criticism of Obama
Likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has criticized President Obama for undermining the American position in Afghanistan by setting timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals, but the New York Times noted on Wednesday that, as the general election campaign gets underway, “the war’s declining support among voters means there is little space for him to stake out a policy that provides both a sharp political contrast with Mr. Obama and keeps the war’s unpopularity at a distance. ”
A new Pew Research Center poll conducted April 4-15, which finds public support for the U.S. military presence at a record low, also contains some numbers that illustrate Romney’s dilemma.
Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Obama supporters want a troop withdrawal as quickly as possible, while Republicans are more divided: 49 percent favor a quick withdrawal while 43 percent want to keep U.S. troops in that country until it is stable.
But the key figures are those for swing voters: 59 percent want the troops out as soon as possible compared to 31 percent who want them to remain until there is stability.
Overall, 60 percent of Americans want to remove troops as soon as possible compared to 32 percent who want them to stay for now.
Only 38 percent of those surveyed believed that the military effort in Afghanistan was going very or fairly well.
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Another Major Poll Has Romney and Obama in Tight Race
Another major national poll is showing that Mitt Romney, having survived the ups-and-downs of an unexpectedly long and contentious GOP nomination contest, has closed the gap with President Obama with the two men tied at 46 percent each.
A new New York Times/CBS News poll conducted April 13-17 also found that 54 percent of Republican primary voters want him to be the party’s standard-bearer, an improvement from March when only 30 percent said so. However, 40 percent of Republicans said they had reservations about Romney compared to 33 percent who supported him “enthusiastically.” Those with reservations were mostly white evangelicals, conservatives and tea party movement supporters.
In March, Obama had a slight 47 percent to 44 percent lead over Romney.
Obama Lead Over Romney Narrows; Close Contest Between Them on Handling Economy, Jobs
The 12 point lead that President Obama enjoyed over Mitt Romney in a Pew Research Center poll last month has now narrowed to four points, and as a WashingtonPost/ABC News poll last week suggested, one of Obama’s vulnerabilities may be that Romney runs almost evenly with him among voters who rank the economy and jobs as the issue “very important” to their vote.
That underlines a point that Pew Research Center president Andrew Kohut made in a piece on the New York Times website on Tuesday in which he wrote, “Obama and Romney both carry so much political baggage that one or the other will have to defy modern political history to win in November.” For Romney, the problem is his personal favorability ratings are lower than any candidate who has won the presidency. For Obama, the challenge is that “no incumbent president has ever won re-election with unemployment rates as high as they are likely to be in November.”
Obama’s lead over Romney in the April 4-15 Pew poll stands at 49 percent to 45 percent. The margin of error is 2.1 points.
Last month, Obama had led Romney by 54 percent to 42 percent, and by 52 percent to 44 percent in February.
Eighty-six percent of voters said the issue most important to their vote was the economy and 84 percent said the same about jobs. The top three following that were the budget deficit (74 percent), health care (74 percent), and education (72 percent).
At the bottom of voters’ agendas are some of the social issues that became hot-buttons this year — gay marriage and birth control, (the latter issue being one that was sparked by an Obama administration rule that, in its original form, required religious-related institutions to provide health coverage to employees for contraception).
Most Republicans See Romney as Inevitable, But a Slight Majority Wants Santorum to Stay in Race
Although Republicans now favor Mitt Romney over Rick Santorum for the GOP presidential nomination by a 19 point margin, 52 percent of them say he should stay in the race compared to 43 percent who believe he should drop out, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted May 5-8.
However, the question of whether Santorum should drop out became moot Tuesday afternoon when he announced that he was suspending his campaign.
The survey also contained one underwhelming number for Romney when Republicans were asked whether they preferred to see him nominated or have the party turn to someone who is not currently in the race. Fifty-two percent said the GOP should nominate Romney, and 34 percent wanted someone else. Fourteen percent expressed no opinion.
Six-in-ten or more Republicans said Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul should drop out.
Thirty percent of Republicans said the combative and longer-than-expected Republican primary campaign has done more to weaken Romney while 54 percent said it made him a stronger candidate. Four percent said the primaries had no impact on his strength as a candidate and 14 percent had no opinion.
