In the new ABC News/Washington Post poll, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney extends his lead among Independents to 14 points, 53-39 percent. Two months ago, a  POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground poll found Romney had a ten-point lead among the critical Independent voters.

The mainstream media is touting the poll as showing the race is “dead even” — a 47-47 percent Obama-Romney contest among registered voters. Yet the new poll contains many more warning signs for the Obamacrats.

Obama’s overall job rating is 47-49 percent, approve-disapprove (the same as in May). But his approvals are majority negative on:

1. The Economy, 44-54 percent;
2. Health Care, 41-52 percent (a numerical low in approval, with no bump from last month’s Supreme Court ruling); and
3. Immigration, 38-52 percent (also bumpless despite Obama’s halting enforcement against certain illegal aliens, who arrived as minors) via executive fiat.

Sixty-three percent say the country’s headed in the wrong direction. This is hard to dispute in light of the very disappointing May and June unemployment reports and the 41 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent during the Obama presidency.

Obama’s biggest shortfall is on the deficit where he trails Romney by 25-70 percent. It’s not hard to see why. As of July 6, 2012, the national debt was $15,879,528,608,975.11 ($15.9 trillion). It was $10,626,877,048,913.08 ($10.6 trillion) when Obama became president. That’s a $5.3 trillion, or 50 percent, increase in less than four years. On July 3, 2008, Presidential candidate Obama said that adding $4 trillion in debt was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.” President-elect Obama warned us when he predicted “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come.” And President Obama promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term not once but at least five times.

The new poll also offers additional evidence that Obama’s continuing and misleading attacks against Romney’s private sector experience at Bain Capital has not hurt Romney. The poll found  an even split on whether his Bain Capital background is a major reason to support or oppose him (23-24 percent), with 50 percent saying it makes no difference.

And all these favorable findings for Romney come from another poll skewed toward Democrat results. The new poll used a sample of  33 percent Democrats, 24 percent Republicans and 36 percent Independents. As we have mentioned before, based upon exit polling, the 2008 electorate was 39 percent Democrat, 32 percent Republican, and 29 percent Independent. In 2010, it was 35 percent Democrat, 35 percent Republican, and 29 percent Independent.

The new ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted  July 5-8, 2012 and has a margin of sampling error of 4 percent for the full sample and registered voters.