NBC polls: Obama edges Romney in three key battleground states
President Barack Obama holds a narrow advantage over presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney in three of the most pivotal presidential battleground states — Florida, Ohio and Virginia — according to new NBC-Marist polls.
But in each of these states, Obama’s share of the vote is below the 50 percent threshold usually considered safe haven for an incumbent president, and Romney has narrowed the margin in these three battlegrounds since earlier this year.
In Florida and Virginia, Obama leads Romney by an identical four-point margin, 48 percent to 44 percent, among registered voters, including those who are undecided but leaning toward a particular candidate.
In Ohio, the president is ahead by six points, 48 percent to 42 percent.
A new Gallup poll has right-wing imbeciles predictably crowing with delight, but that’s because they stop reading at the attention-grabbing headline instead of reading the entire article.
According to Gallup, only 41% of Americans identify themselves as pro-choice. What Gallup buries in its findings is that 52% believe that abortion should be legal under some circumstances (a pro-choice position), 25% believe abortion should be legal in all circumstances (also a pro-choice position), and only 20% believe that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. In other words: While only 41% call themselves pro-choice, 77% hold pro-choice voices.
NBC/WSJ poll: Obama, Romney locked in tight contest
Despite a volatile and eventful past few weeks in the early presidential contest, President Barack Obama continues to hold a small – and slightly narrowing – lead over Mitt Romney, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll…
This poll – which was taken after the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, Obama’s announcement in support of gay marriage, fresh economic worries about Europe, and last month’s tepid jobs report – shows the Democrat leading Romney by four points among registered voters, 47 percent to 43 percent.
Fully 56 percent of all Americans say an economic system favoring the wealthy is a bigger problem than regulatory overreach by the government…
Somewhere, Reince Priebus is quietly weeping…
PPP’s newest Pennsylvania poll finds things have changed very little in the state over the course of the last ten weeks. Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney 50-42, basically the same as his 49-42 advantage there in early March.
It doesn’t look like Obama’s going to have to worry too much about Pennsylvania this year, and that’s a big change from what we found in our polling of the state over the course of 2011. Obama led by an average of less than a point in four PPP polls there last year. He was plagued by poor approval ratings then, but now voters are pretty evenly divided on him with 48% approving and 49% disapproving of the job he’s doing. Meanwhile Romney continues to be unpopular, with just 37% of voters rating him positively to 51% with a negative opinion.
Obama and Romney are holding their party’s voters in basically equal numbers, with Obama taking 80% of Democrats and Romney 78% of Republicans. In a state where Democrats have a large registration advantage Obama wins if that holds true. It’s a departure from some past polls that found him under even 70% of the Democratic vote, but conservative whites seem to be moving back toward him just as they did after supporting Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary. Obama’s also up 48-24 with Pennsylvania’s small contingent of independent voters.
Obama is up 56-36 with women and 64-28 with young voters, two groups that continue to help provide the base of his support in many swing states.
Sorry, Marco Rubio: Obama Isn’t As Divisive As Bush, Lincoln, or Clinton
Republicans often accuse President Obama of being divisive, whether he’s talking about tax rates for the wealthy or the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. One adviser to Mitt Romney, GOP strategist Ed Gillespie, calls Obama “one of the most divisive presidents in American history.” Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida upped the ante last weekend when he said that “we have not seen such a divisive figure in modern American history” since Obama took office.
Please. Tell that to Abraham Lincoln or, if we’re limiting ourselves to modern history, to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush.
Especially tell it to Bush, who holds six of the top 10 spots on Gallup’s “most polarizing presidents” list. It’s calculated by the annual difference between a president’s approval in his own party and the opposition party. Ranked by the size of the gap, Bush is Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and 10. Obama holds slots 4 and 6, while Clinton and Ronald Reagan are ranked 7th and 9th, respectively.
And before anyone asks: No, it was not an online poll. It was a phone poll of likely voters conducted by the Democratic polling firm Anderson Robbins Research working with the Republican polling firm Shaw & Company Research.
Hey America, this is what politicizing looks like. Idiots.
Rubio was by far the most popular candidate with Tea Party supporters, and the only potential vice presidential pick to pull more than 20 percent with any of the groups represented in the poll.
That’s because they think having Rubio on the ticket will insulate the GOP from charges of racism — as if a few token non-whites in the party’s highest ranks negates the party’s racist policies.
A vote is not a voice. It cannot be “drowned out” by the noise of others. Cast it or the Super PACs win.
The most Rubio could do is energize Republican base voters—who seem to love him—but even that isn’t much of an advantage; conservative anger towards Obama is so fierce that they’ll turn out, regardless of who Romney chooses for the vice presidential nomination.
With Rubio or Without Him, Latinos Don’t Like the GOP
I think Bouie is missing two points: First, tapping Rubio as VP would (in the mind of the GOP leadership) further insulate the party from charges of racism (“See, we have Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Allen West, Marco Rubio… we’re a big tent!”) which serves the GOP’s long-term strategy. Second, elevating Rubio to the national stage now — even though the GOP is going to lose the battle for the White House this November — could pay off in 2016 or 2020 if the GOP wanted Rubio to run for President.
A new Democracy Corps/Greenberg Quinlan Rosner survey of 1,000 voters in the 56 most competitive GOP-held districts finds Democrats improving their party brand and performing far better than they did during the disastrous 2010 midterms. The numbers also show the GOP losing ground among key demographic groups, including senior women, suburban voters, and moderates; the party’s image has taken a beating as state and national leaders have tried to pass harsh anti-abortion laws and reduce access to contraception.
But the real threat might be Ryan’s budget, which the Republican-controlled House passed a revised version of late last month…
Perhaps most notably, Republican redistricting, which was supposed to buttress their control on power, could be backfiring. The poll found that in 14 competitive districts, the new lines are less favorable than the old ones to Republican incumbents.
Today’s New York Times/CBS poll [PDF] is the first survey I’ve seen that asks about tax fairness in the context of economic growth:
Which do you think is the best way to promote economic growth in the U.S.? 1.Lower taxes on individuals and businesses, and pay for those tax cuts by spending on some government services and programs, or 2. Spend more on education and the nation’s infrastructure, and raise taxes on wealthy individuals and businesses to pay for that spending.
Lower taxes, cut spending: 37
Spend more, raise taxes: 56
The poll also finds that 67 percent say the government should do more to help improve the situation of middle class Americans; 52 percent say government shold do more to improve the housing market; 57 percent think the wealthy pay less than their fair share in taxes; and that 51 percent think capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income. People say they dislike government in the abstract, but when the talk turns to specifics, suddenly active government doesn’t look so bad.
The Morning Plum: Who is winning the clash of visions?
You mean Americans WANT government intervention, more government spending, and higher taxes on the wealthy? Why, how socialist!
