Posted on 01/30/2012 10:56:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Mitt Romney edges Barack Obama among registered voters in swing states, according to a new Gallup/USA Today poll. By “edge,” I mean barely edges — by a single point. Even with that, though, Romney fares far better than his competitors in the same polling:
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney essentially ties Barack Obama in the nation’s key battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States survey finds, while rival Newt Gingrich now trails the president by a decisive 14 percentage points.
That reflects a significant decline by the former House speaker since early December, when he led Obama by three points. …
In a head-to-head race, Romney leads Obama by a statistically insignificant percentage point, 48%-47%, the survey finds.
But Obama leads Gingrich, 54%-40%. The president’s standing against him has risen nine points since early December; Gingrich has fallen by eight.
Gingrich fares less well than Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who trails Obama by seven points, 50%-43%, and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who also trails by seven points, 51%-44%.
As I’ve written before, this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison. While the GOP continues its primary slugfest, it’s natural to have some voters refuse to back primary candidates against Obama as a form of principle protest, at least for the moment. Democrats are united behind Barack Obama and have no such reservations.
The key to this poll is the fact that Obama as incumbent falls below 50%, especially in a poll of registered rather than likely voters, regardless of which head-to-head matchup it appears. That’s a soft re-elect number — not fatal to re-election at that level, but a problem that could grow after the Republicans actually pick their nominee. Since likely voter samples tend to produce less favorable results for Democrats, that problem is probably worse than it seems at the moment.
Gingrich still has a problem, though. Even though he has regained his top-tier status in the Republican primary, he seems to have alienated a lot of voters to have a 17-point swing in the gap over just six or seven weeks. Given the tone of the campaign and especially Gingrich’s angry attacks over the past week, that may not be a big surprise. What might play well with the Tea Party base won’t play well in a general election, and the polling results of the last few days indicates that it doesn’t play well with the Tea Party base, either.
That being said, scroll all the way down to look at the sample sizes in the states Gallup polled. The overall poll is of 737 registered voters, which is a respectable sample size for a national poll, and should be as well for a subset of a national poll. Some states in this sample only got as few as 11 or 17 voters included in the survey, though. The participation seems to be proportional to state population sizes, but I think this poll would have benefited from a healthier sample from some of the swing states involved.
Gallup push polling to sucker GOP voters to nominate Myth!
Another B.S. poll designed to convince Republicans to vote for the Socialist Romney over Gingrich.
Romney is not only a Mormon but certainly a Pimp with two (2) good loking Prostitutes in his Harem; one in South Carolina and one here in Florida!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV0QkgHvJ-c&feature=player_embedded
Polls of registered voters (as opposed to likely voters) have no real-world use, other than as propaganda.
It is still early in the game.
I’m encouraged. Even if Romney were to win, I would prefer him to Mr. Incompetent. I prefer Gingrich now.
There are plenty of us that, if Romney gets the nomination, will pass on the presidential election.
Yes, it means Obama would almost certainly get a second term and, yes, we think Romney is that bad.
Id be interested to know how McCain stacked up against Obama according to Gallop polling around the same time in 2008..these polling sites are all about pimping Romney the same way they pimped McCain because they know that BOTH were the least electable
I remember back in 2007 a very smart guy told me “there’s no way Americans are gonna elect a guy named Hussein as POTUS”.
And amazingly it looks like we’re going to do it twice, even after Baraq has totally failed at the economy which is usually THE predictor of elections.
Baraq’s going to retire in 2017 like an undefeated boxer who never fought anyone with a winning record.
I still do not expect Obama to finish his first term.
I`m curious how you arrive at that.. his ego is WAY too huge to step down voluntarily.
—I`m curious how you arrive at that.. his ego is WAY too huge to step down voluntarily.—
Yes, it is.
I, on the other hand, wonder if he'll EVER leave....LOL
RE: I still do not expect Obama to finish his first term.
What on earth do you expect to happen?
None of the major polls had some weird outlier numbers, most were within 2 points of the final results, a few were off by 3 points at most.
Ignore the major polls at your peril. That's just the way it is.
—I, on the other hand, wonder if he’ll EVER leave....LOL—
You’ve actually mentioned my caveat: Although highly unlikely, if elections were ever suspended or he otherwise stayed in office in spite of the will of the people via standard elections, he would no longer be in his “term” as the elected president, which would mean that, although he may sit in a position “called” president, he would not have finished his lawful term. It would have been replaced by him being something like a dictator.
But I try to be careful about voicing the same ridiculous concern the fringe liberals had about Bush. ;-)
—RE: I still do not expect Obama to finish his first term.
What on earth do you expect to happen?—
Any number of things. The amazon offing him. Suicide, assassination, the myriad of scandals (from who he REALLY dated before he met the amazon to Gunwalker, to LightSquared to Solyndra to the birth certificate. You name it.
I think he may also buckle under the pressure of the geopolitical events that are sure to transpire before the election.
RE: The amazon offing him.
I’m lost here. Who the heck is the amazon?
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