ELECTIONATE JULY 19, 2012
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After a week of bad news for the Romney campaign, a wave of polls last night showed the horserace essentially unchanged. Fox News showed Obama up by 4 points, compared to 5 points in their last poll. Gallup and Rasmussen may as well have posted the results from any day over the last two months; the NPR poll shows Obama with a 2 point advantage among likely voters—a pretty decent performance considering the traditional divide between registered voters and likely voters and a 1 point decline since the last Democracy Corps survey.
As if a continuing tight race wasn’t clear enough, last night’s poll from CBS News and The New York Times was even an unusually good poll for Romney: It was the first non-Gallup poll of registered voters to show Romney leading since April, when Fox News showed Romney with a three point advantage. Some have tried to dismiss the CBS/NYT poll by noting that their last poll showed Romney leading by three. But that was a panel-back survey conducted in the aftermath of Obama’s decision to endorse gay marriage, and a panel-back probably isn't a solid baseline; the better comparison might be with the full poll from April, which showed a tied race. From a certain perspective, the most surprising part about the CBS/NYT poll is that it’s been so long since Romney led a non-Gallup poll of registered voters. Obama leads by between 2 and 4 points in most registered voter surveys, so Romney might be expected to at least occasionally hold the advantage.
The polls have been unwavering for months, so it shouldn't be a surprise that a few days of bad press haven’t shifted the race. After all, gay marriage, Bain, Mayor Booker, the DREAM Act, the ACA ruling, and terrible jobs reports didn’t move the polls. Romney’s numbers are unlikely to fall so long as he remains near 45 percent, since his supporters are almost exclusively Republican-leaning voters who disapprove of Obama's performance. Their opinions of the president are strong enough to ensure enduring support for Romney through good times and bad. No one should be surprised that undecided voters with deep reservations about Obama’s performance didn’t flock back to the president's corner.
Squinting at the numbers, Obama might have lost about a point over the last month, perhaps as a result of dismal economic numbers. His approval and favorability numbers appear to have suffered as well. That’s a bad sign for an incumbent President who was already beneath fifty percent. But Romney hasn’t made progress toward consolidating the mass of undecided and disaffected voters with reservations about the President’s performance, despite worsening economic conditions. He’s under no obligation to do so until Election Day, but even Kerry was able to soak up plenty of undecided voters and move up to about 48 percent when Bush hit tough times in the summer of 2004. Romney’s consistent 45-46 percent standing—which also happens to be McCain’s final performance—shouldn’t be interpreted as a ceiling, but it’s a sign that the Republican challenger still has a way to go.
5 comments
The CBS/NYT national survey found that most (by a fairly wide margin) believed Romney would do a better job of handling the economy, roughly half blamed GWB for the current economic crisis, and most believed Romney would return to GWB's economic policies. How does the Obama campaign square that circle. It can't. Is it that narrow sliver of voters who have such irreconcilable views who will decide the election? If that's the case, can we look forward to having Mickey Mouse as our president. No, those with such irreconcilable views won't decide the election. Nor will the undecideds (being undecided between Obama and Romney is equivalent to being undecided between Christianity and Judaism). Rather, it's all about getting more informed (partisan) voters to vote. Obama has the bigger challenge because he's the incumbent in a terrible economy. Which means he has to employ a more aggressive campaign to motivate the marginal voters. Which explains the current tactics. My concern is that, in a rush to define Romney, Obama may be way too early with the effort to motivate the marginal voters. Attention spans are very short.
- rayward
July 19, 2012 at 5:24pm
I just got polled by an automated call: who was I supporting, how likely am I to change my mind & to vote, who do I think will support policies that will benefit the middle class. I have no idea who was doing the polling. Meanwhile, I've seen very little reporting of the ground game of both campaigns. At the Obama HQ where I do data entry once a week, the field organizers are still doing lots of voter registration, mostly on weekends, but also starting to call voters, determine who they're supporting, and develop strategies to persuade undecided or leaning voters. When early voting starts we'll start helping people who need rides get to the polls. There's a lot of ethusiasm and perseverance. Not much coverage of how this effort stacks up against the media onslaught.
- s.trabka@frontier.com-old
July 19, 2012 at 6:34pm
"Romney’s numbers are unlikely to fall so long as he remains near 45 percent," Alright, I can't argue with that.
- Nusholtz
July 19, 2012 at 8:54pm
"Rather, it's all about getting more informed (partisan) voters to vote." Agreed. And this is the real point of the Bain attacks: make Obama-leaning voters who are disappointed with the president angry enough and frightened enough at the prospect of a Romney presidency that they overcome their inertia and get out to pull the lever for Obama. Can somebody please tell William Galston that this is not an effect that can be measured in a poll conducted in July?
- AaronW
July 19, 2012 at 9:54pm
When Obama gets re-elected it will be fun to read all the analyses pointing up how through overly tenacious adherence to an extremist ideology far to the right of the majority of the American people, the Republicans squandered what will almost certainly be their best chance in at least a generation at unseating an incumbent Democrat.
- AaronW
July 19, 2012 at 10:01pm