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The days after Hurricane Sandy brought a small bump in President Obama’s numbers against Governor Romney and in job approval. This was easily explained by the positive television coverage Obama received about his initial statements on relief efforts and with his flyover of New Jersey with Chris Christie. But the underlying reason for Obama’s small bounce was his movement among independents. In all of the tracking polls, Romney saw his lead with independents shrink from double digits to just about even. On Saturday, the Washington Post tracking poll showed a tie, and Rasmussen dropped to just a three-point advantage for...

President Obama is collapsing among Independent voters, but this is not an "October Surprise." The rebellion of the center is a fundamental trend of President Obama's four years in office. In our inaugural survey in April 2009, 100 days into President Obama’s time in office, Resurgent Republic noted: "[Voters] are deeply skeptical about the amount of money Mr. Obama proposes for the government to spend, tax, and borrow for bailouts and other spending programs that produce few private sector jobs. Independents, who hold the balance of power in this electorate, are closer to Republicans than to Democrats on these fiscal...

“(Obama) has been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state and not once did he bring up the election,” said an adoring Chris Christie of the president’s clearly selfless tour of New Jersey after hurricane Sandy. (1) Why of COURSE governor, politics couldn’t have been further from the mind of an individual who has campaigned literally each and every day since his inauguration in January of 2009. Prior to Governor Christie’s slobbering display of man-live before an obviously delighted battalion of media cameras, Rasmussen had Mitt Romney leading in the national tracking poll. Now, however, it is...

Despite President Barack Obama turning the tide with a five-point swing among Independents with his response to Hurricane Sandy, the race is still too close to call, pollster John Zogby tells Newsmax TV. The latest NewsmaxZogby polling numbers show Obama, who was down three points just a few days ago, has pulled ahead by a couple of points. Zogby said the president is “turning the tide with Independents.” “He was down by as many as nine and 10 points nationally among independents and now what we see is that that’s a razor thin,” he said. “The governor leads by only...

See video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUJwHoz40hc

A new Resurgent Republic poll shows Mitt Romney continues to hold a massive lead over Barack Obama. Mitt leads by 12 points with independent voters.(CHART AT LINK) According to Megyn Kelly on America Live, Romney’s numbers with independent voters is the sharpest tilt since Ronald Reagan’s 49 state landslide in 1984.(VIDEO AT LINK) More from Drudge: WISC: R 49% O 49%... COLO: R 50% O 47%… RASMUSSEN THURSDAY: R 49% O 47%… IOWA: R 49% O 48%... OHIO: R 49% O 46%...

According to a new poll from Franklin and Marshall, Mitt Romney is just four percentage points behind President Barack Obama … in Pennsylvania. In September, that gap was a full nine points. “Momentum is with Romney,” says poll director Terry Madonna. Madonna thinks that Romney may run out of time to make up that deficit. But the internals of the poll are shocking for Obama. Romney is ahead of Obama in terms of who the public believes can best fix the economy. Obama’s personal favorability is down from 2008; they’re actually at George W. Bush numbers circa 2004. And voter...

...There are few things certain in life, but you can count on Democrats not repeating the massive turnout they enjoyed in 2008. That year, Democrats had an 8 point advantage in OH. They had a 6 point advantage in VA and a 3 point advantage in FL. It was their biggest turnout advantage in at least three decades. Quinnipiac, almost fraudulently, assumes Democrats will have the same advantage in OH next week, but will enlarge their advantage in the other two states. VA, according to Quinnipiac will go from D+6 to D+8. Florida, amazingly, will go from D+3 to D+7,...

President Obama has a problem with independents. And it’s not a small problem. In the last three releases of the tracking poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News, Obama has trailed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among independent voters by between 16 and 20 percentage points. That’s a striking reversal from 2008, when Obama won independent voters, who made up 29 percent of the electorate, by eight points over Sen. John McCain of Arizona. And if Romney’s large margin among independents holds, it will be a break not just from 2008 but also from 2000 and 2004. In...

Actually, I’m not sure what demographic Madonna’s audience would fall into, but I’m pretty sure it’s not any of the traditional Republican constituencies. And yet … Madonna drew some jeers from her crowd in New Orleans on Saturday night after she told audience members to vote for President Obama, the Associated Press reports. “Who’s registered to vote?” she said, adding, “I don’t care who you vote for as long as you vote for Obama.” The comment was followed by boos and some walk outs from the audience. Yeah, but were they Voguing on their way out?

Lately a simple question has been coming to mind: just how did Mitt Romney get elected governor of heavily Democratic Massachusetts ten years ago?  Romney could have run for governor of Utah instead, which would have been not only easier but would have spared us the egregious Jon Huntsman.  Saying that he ran as a moderate, pro-choice Republican is not a fully adequate explanation.  Nor is a weak Democratic opponent (Shannon O’Brien), or the strange fact that Democratic Massachusetts had elected three Republicans in a row before Romney.  If anything that made it an even harder race to win.Now, you...

With a week to go until the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney has a decided leg up on President Barack Obama. The polls are clear. Since the fallout from the first debate in Denver on October 3, Romney has enjoyed a relatively durable lead over the president in the Real Clear Politics average of the national polls. While the lead is small, it has persisted over time, and, more important, history suggests that this is trouble for an incumbent. The only sitting president to mount a last-minute comeback against his challenger was Gerald Ford in 1976, and of course Ford...

Back in 2008 Candidate Obama beat Candidate McCain in NC by 14,177 total votes. During early voting Candidate Obama saw about a 22% Democratic participation rate advantage over Candidate McCain. When all the voting was over in 2008 Candidate Obama won NC by about 0.32% over McCain. Obama received 2,142,651 total votes (49.70%) McCain received 2,128,474 total votes (49.38%) As a baseline, NC voter registration back in 2008 on election day was: Dem: 2,849,979 (46%) Rep: 1,949,494 (32%) Una: 1,385,487 (22%) Lib: <1% As of yesterday (26 Oct 2012) NC voter registration is: Dem: 2,849,683 (43%) Rep: 2,040,552 (31%) Una:...

Barack Obama is toast. This is not something I say lightly. I generally try to remain cautious about predictions, because the prediction business is a humbling one. I have never been especially bullish on Mitt Romney, and I spent most of the summer and early fall arguing that this was basically a neck-and-neck race that would go down to the wire. But in the end, two things stand out: One, Mitt Romney has a consistent, significant lead among independent voters, which increasingly looks like a double-digit lead. This is especially clear in national polls, but can also be seen in...

Talk about the law of unintended consequences . . . On today's Morning Joe, Willie Geist interviewed an audience member sporting a T-shirt reading "Mika Made Me A Republican." The good-natured fellow explained that his daughters had made the T-shirt for him, that he was an independent who had voted for Perot, and that he watches Morning Joe daily because he likes to hear what the other side has to say. Whatever it was that Mika has been saying, it has apparently driven him into the Romney camp. View the video here.

October 22, 2012 Romney Crushing Obama with Independents in New Monmouth Poll (Update: Romney Lead Holds in Gallup) Bryan Preston A new Monmouth University poll carries more bad news for the Obama campaignadministration (that’s not a typo). Nationally, Mitt Romney now leads 48-45. That’s a flip from mid-September, when Obama led by the same margin. Five percent remain undecided.The poll finds that about 12% of likely voters in the sample have already voted nationally, and Romney leads among them 44-41. The gender gap has also closed dramatically after the first debate, with Obama leading by just four points among women...

Tuesday morning, in an op-ed in the Des Moines Register, businessman and former presidential candidate Ross Perot declared his unequivocal support for Republican candidate Mitt Romney. "President Obama promised a great deal. He has had his chance," Perot wrote. "The results are visible for all to see. It is time for a new beginning. It is time for Mitt Romney." Complaining of Obama's policy writ large, Perot echoed the GOP challenger's campaign slogan, writing that America "can't afford four more years in which debt mushrooms out of control, our government grows and our military is weakened." Going on to praise...

Christian Heinze at The Hill picks up on a months-long polling trend that I've noted for quite a while, but which has mostly escaped the media. Mitt Romney has consistently and clearly led among independent voters for quite a while, although Heinze only looks at the most recent polls to make his point about the nature of the race: Fueling his current polling surge, Mitt Romney's numbers with indies are just getting remarkably good.a. IBD/ITP poll released today: Romney 52% Obama 34%.b. Pew poll, released yesterday: Romney 46% Obama 42%.c. Politico/GW poll, released yesterday: Romney 51% Obama 35%.d. CNN, released...

Fueling his current polling surge, Mitt Romney's numbers with indies are just getting remarkably good. a. IBD/ITP poll released today: Romney 52% Obama 34%. b. Pew poll, released yesterday: Romney 46% Obama 42%. c. Politico/GW poll, released yesterday: Romney 51% Obama 35%. d. CNN, released last week: Romney 49% Obama 41%. e. National Journal, released October 3: Romney 49% Obama 41%. Now having said that, Romney has done well this entire cycle with independents, but not enough to overcome turnout models that suggested much, much higher Democratic turnout. But now he's killing it so soundly that it's enough to overcome...

Presenting facts about even popular aspects of the health-care law had a side effect: increasing support for Mitt Romney. Just a few days ago, the conventional wisdom about the presidential campaign was beginning to take hold: Mitt Romney's candidacy had failed to catch fire, and Barack Obama's re-election was almost certain. Wednesday's debate upended that notion. While there is still plenty of time for more twists in the campaign, it is clear that many voters who thought they had enough information about the candidates are now considering them in a new light. One of the debate's major topics was health...