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Romney opens 10-point lead among Independents

By: Dan Spencer (Diary)  |  May 7th, 2012 at 11:45 AM  | 

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A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll finds the presidential race between President  Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to be very close, with Romney leading by a single point — 48% to 47%, among likely voters.

More important is the 10-point lead, 48% to 38%, Romney has among the critical Independents voters. That confirms Romney’s six point lead among Independets that Gallup found last month.

The Battleground poll also found that Romney has a “6-point lead among those who describe themselves as extremely likely to vote in November.”

Other interesting findings from the new Battleground poll include:

  • Obama’s job approval rating stands at 48 percent, down five points from February.
  • Most respondents have already made up their minds about how to vote in the fall: Forty-three percent said with certainty they will vote to reelect Obama, and 42 percent said they will vote to replace the president.
  • Romney is closing the gender gap — Obama leads among women by seven points, while Romney has the same lead among male voters. Obama leads among women younger than 45, 57% to 39%, while Romney leads among women older than 45, 50% to 45%.

In an interesting contrast to a message team Obama was spinning on the Sunday talk shows, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake who helped conduct the bipartisan poll admitted, “the Democrats are less enthusiastic than the Republicans.”

The POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll was conducted from April 29 to May 3 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

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COMMENTS

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  • APA Guy

    There was a time when Independents voted solidly with Obama. They are getting a good look at the future with what is happening in France and Greece…and they’re not liking it at all.

    I expect these numbers to continue to solidify for Romney…who, if nothing else, will not continue the socialist path that Obama so badly craves…the same path that is destroying the EU’s economic prospects.

    • Viet71

      Indies tend to be thoughtful voters. Any truly thoughtful voter will pick Romney over Obama.

    • bub

      Romney would have let Bin Laden live and Detroit die.

      (if he meant what he said, when he said it).

      • APA Guy

        Did you really think I wouldn’t dig up your other comment here?

        http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/09/09/joe-wilson-great-american-hero/#comment-31495

        Get lost…your hero is set to have his arse handed to him in November…bank on it.

      • garfieldjl

        Romney would have ordered the raid to take out Bin Laden as would most of the other Republicans that were running.

        Give me a break, even Jimmy Carter would have ordered that raid.

      • Bill S

        No leftist talking points here.

        • PowerToThePeople

          he put so much work into his screen name only to banned after two comments. You did not even give him time to learn how to be a secret liberal on this board so that he could sow strife amongst us.

          And I did not get a chance to call him a jackass which by far is the biggest loss of this ban.

          Head up next time? :)

  • zachv

    n/t

  • dbkohl

    Sounds to me that he needs to continue to court the independents, while he chooses a VP to his right to rally the base.

  • http://anonymouspoliticalscientist.blogspot.com/ augustine25

    As a political scientist, I’m paying attention to the unemployment rate, Obama’s job approval numbers. I’m assuming that undecided voters will nearly all end up voting against Obama and for Romney. I’m expecting that independents are waking up to the substantial information out there that Obama has long-standing ties to anti-American, Marxist socialist ideology.

  • fredflintlock

    Unless there is an absence of independents in the Tar Heel state, Romney wins easily. Obama beat McCain by a razor thin margin of 14,000+ votes, or .32%. If all else remains the same, this alone moves 15 electors to Romney for a difference of 188(R) to 250(O).

    With FL, IN, OH and PA in play this race is very winnable. The margins in FL and IN were fairly narrow in 2008 too.

    • acat

      (of course, I had hoped Illinois would dump Quinn (D-IL Gov) after the Blagojevich debacle… but North Carolina seems a bit more .. rational.

      Mew

      • fredflintlock

        Counting on Obama’s wars on coal and retirees to swing the vote.

        • rightlane1111

          If Romney picks Rubio…and with his remarks concerning immigration and his plans…I think this will go a long way to getting the Latino vote. As the article said…Rubio adds charisma to the ticket as opposed to WOODEN WILLARD. Should Rubio be the pick..FL will swing Republican…especially if Rubio explains the debacle of SS to them and the SOLUTION.

          Ohio…with all the unions…hard…but I think with the governor…Kaschich(sp) that Ohio will swing Red also. I believe that individual union people are seeing the writing on the wall…Obama will throw them under the bus also after they have been used. BTW…so much for the “Rich, Fat Cats”…GM PAID NO TAXES…along with GE.

          PA…that’s a mess. I don’t know whether Santorum has any sway there…but eastern PA is Dem…Western…Rep. Who is the governor in PA. I think Rendell is done..so did it go Republican…if it did…perhaps there is hope there.

          • fredflintlock

            I really felt good about the candidate after the last two victory speeches. He’s warmed up considerably, sounds more confident and is speaking without hesitation predominantly in the conservative dialect. He’s even more willing to take on Obama directly now and doesn’t run from the fights the other side keeps picking.

            He’s finding his stride.

          • rightlane1111

            Today on Drudge…an article concerning the taxes that Romney was “unaware” that he paid foreign governments. The questioner was obviously an Obama plant … even to knowing exactly what page the information was on. The point is…Romney said he was unaware that he had paid foreign taxes to offset those in the USA. So…the DNC, as it was stated in Drudge will probably use it as a campaign video.

            What Romney needs to do to offset this is ask Obama…how much did Obama and Michelle cost us on the taxpayer’s dime. What did Michele pay at the Taj Mahal? How many trip has Obama taken that are really campaign stops but are charged to us. How about those two jets to NE?

            But…Romney needs to know his own story…otherwise he looks like he is ducking the question or lying. Remember…the economy is his wheelhouse. I know he has many issues to deal with…but his own personal taxes, something he should know Obama will go after as a perceived “fat cat” should be in his intellectual DNA….NOT…I AM NOT AWARE OF IT.

  • http://www.tooncesthecat.wordpress.com tooncesthecat

    The other interesting number from the Politco/GWU poll was that only 33% of the respondents thought the country was headed in the right direction, while 59% thought we were on the wrong track. This is consistent with other polls over the past month. The latest Gallup poll has Obama at a 34% approval rating with “pure independents” those who don’t lean Republican or lean Democrat). If Obama is this much underwater on these measures, it is difficult to see him winning re-election. Thank God.

  • jon11

    Romney is ideologically center-right…like the broader american electorate, so the fact that he’s starting to lead among independents doesn’t surprise me at all.

    I am surprised that its happened this quickly. The primary has only been over a few weeks.

    So much for the MSM narrative that he lurched so far right in order to win the primary that he alienated the middle and will have to work over time to win them back.

    Lots of encouraging poll numbers out this morning. Also a poll showing him leading among older/white women, tied with obama overall in the 9 swing states most feel will determine the election, and still holding a big lead over obama on the question of who Americans trust on the economy.

    I continue to believe that its impossible to overstate what a fluke 2008 was. There are a lot of folks, on the right and the left, that don’t fully appreciate this. Hints the conventional wisdom we’ve had to endure over the past year that said ‘obama is unbeatable.’

    the fact is he’s anything but.

    People on both sides still tend to view 08 as a paradigm shift. They are still trying to extrapolate all kinds of things from an even that was a lot more like a 100 year storm than a game changing event.

    One example is that pundits are still talking about north carolina like its a swing state.

    it isn’t. R’s will carry that easy, as they always have.

    Nor do i think obama has a real shot in Virginia, to be honest…although we’re supposed to pretend that ones going to be close. I don’t buy it.

    Obama simply isn’t going to have anything like the support/turnout/enthusiasm he had in 08.

    unfortunately for the pres, electing the first black president just isn’t quite as enthralling the second time around.

    Of course He’ll carry african-americans, latinos and college students but there simply aren’t going to be as many of them as there were in 08

    His record is horrendous.

    This race is the republicans to lose based on pretty much any metric you want to look at.

    im not gloating. anything can happen. and its not wise to understimate the natural advantages of incumbency.

    But it looks as good for R’s at this point as it possibly could…and i think a lot better than most people, on either side, would have thought.

    • trimulchio

      vote just got someone to coalesce around.

      I agree he needs to secure the base with someone like Rubio or McDonnell as VP.

      Now Gov. Romney needs to start talking about policy and contrasting his idea to what is going to happen now in Europe.

      In the immortal words of Captain America in The Ultimates, “The ‘A’ doesn’t stand for ‘France.’”

  • giatny

    If the Republican Party would end its serial
    stupidity and stop criticizing Romney, he would
    have a really good chance of sending Obama
    back to Chicago. The country does not want to
    be led from the extremes. Romney’s bio is
    extraordinarily positive. Wake Up. It’s time to
    organize enthusiastically behind him. The left
    has nearly eviscerated the Tea Party with help
    from the IRS, DHS, MSM etc. The biggest negative
    for the Tea Party is its name. Acorn managed to
    survive and expand under new names. The Tea
    Party should do the same since the “occupiers”
    unions and other lefties have been trained to
    intimidate any meetings. Start over, knock
    on doors and organize for Romney and Republican
    senate candidates or the country is doomed. It
    won’t be easy to overcome the incompetence of the Repub House but the specter of Pelosi’s return
    should help.

    • trimulchio

      Too bad, in a way. A visible Occupy movement demonstrates the lack of viable alternatives to Conservative ideas.

  • http://teresainfortworth.wordpress.com/ Teresa in Fort Worth, TX

    I don’t think that is going to be the turnout that we see at the polls in November.

    The people who want Obama out of office really, REALLY want him out, and would crawl across broken glass to cast their vote….

    • http://www.tooncesthecat.wordpress.com tooncesthecat

      Watch the toss up states turn red when the polls change to the Likely Voter methodology in July. And Romney will begin to stretch out his lead of Obama.

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