National registered voters polling shows very close race
By Jim Cardle
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. With the general election now unofficially under way this has been a week of fresh Presidential Polling.
The race is poised to be close and
this weeks polling shows Mitt Romney has the momentum despite his own notable vulnerabilities.
Mitt Romney is supported by 47 of national registered voters and Barack Obama by 45 in
the inaugural Gallup Daily tracking results from April 11-15.
These results are the first from Gallup Daily tracking of registered voters general election preferences which began on April 11 and will be reported daily on Gallup.com on the basis of continuous five-day rolling averages. This initial report is based on interviews with 2265 registered voters and highlights the potential closeness of this years race with Romney and Obama essentially in a statistical tie.
This weeks New York Times/CBS Poll shows a neck-&-neck race between President Obama & Mitt Romney with registered voters are evenly split. The New York Times/CBS Poll shows both President Obama & Mitt Romney each with 46 support.
Last months Times/CBS poll showed 47 supporting Obama with 44 supporting Romney.
Romney has clearly solidified support within his party for the nomination after Rick Santorums exit from the race and being locked in a tight race with an incumbent president as attention turns to the general electionshould be of concern to the Obama White House.
The poll shows an even split between the two likely contestants in November: Obama
Gallup released its daily tracking of the race first with the
Pew CNN Reuters/Ipsos and
CBS/New York Times Poll that followed.
The Pew Poll is the most comprehensive due to its larger sample size of citizens surveyed. Its detailed breakdown of demographic subgroups shows particularly concerning news for President Obama even though he leads by 4 points overall in that survey.
In what could be a problem for Obama in the November 6 election 53 of registered voters said jobs and the economy were the most important issue in the presidential election campaign and slightly more - 45- rated Romney higher in that area than the 43 who favored Obama.
Obama has had to preside over a really tough economy. ... People are sort of dinging him for it and thats really whats going to make this a competitive race said Chris Jackson research director at Ipsos public affairs.
The nations lingering economic effects are reflected in the adversities facing families.
- Nearly two-thirds of people in the New York Times Poll are concerned about paying for their housing
- 1-in-5 people with mortgages say they are underwater.
- 4-in-10 parents say they have had to alter expectations for the type of college they can afford for their children
- And more than one-third of respondents said high gas prices had created serious financial hardships.
President Obama is today shown to be winning over only 39 of white voters approximating most projections as being in line for a level of support needed to ensure his reelection. However despite the presidents populist push Romney leads 58 to 35 among white non-college voters.
The bright spot for Obama is that hes holding 67 of the Hispanic vote he won in 2008a prerequisite for him. Its no coincidence that Romney (privately) said at a recent fundraiser that Obama winning Hispanics spells doom for us"and theyre the one group thats sticking with the president for now.
On Thursday the much-respected NBC/
Wall Street Journal survey will be released further indicating where the presidential race stands.
So far Romney looks in surprisingly healthy shape even though he emerged from the primary bloodied.
While the polls indicate that Gov. Romneys personal favorability ratings have room for imporovement given the persistent attacks of the Republican Primary it suggests that this race is shaping up to be a referendum even as Team Obama is working hard to make it a choice.
The nationwide NYTimes.com Poll is based on telephone interviews conducted April 13-17 on landlines & cellphones with 852 registered voters including 268 Republican primary or caucus voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3-age points among all voters and 6-age points among Republican primary voters.
The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International April 13-15 with 1015 adult Americans including 910 registered voters questioned by telephone. The surveys overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
