President Barack Obama is leading candidate Mitt Romney in five of the major nine presidential election tracking polls, including FOX News’ own survey, where Obama enjoys a 45% to 40% lead.
Real Clear Politics (RCP) average of polls shows Obama with a bare lead; 46.4% for Obama and 44.7% for Romney. Most critical for the president’s chances, however, the Quinnipiac University poll released June 27 shows Obama with leads in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. All are do-or-die states with huge chunks of the electoral votes.
Quinnipiac showed Obama leading Romney 47-38 in Ohio, 45-39 in Pennsylvania, and, 45-41 in Florida.
What’s more, voters supported Obama’s move to halt deportation of young undocumented immigrants and to grant work authorization, by a 58% to 33% in Florida.
Out of the nine tracking polls, excluding RCP’s, Obama leads in five. The two candidates are tied on two polls, 46% each, on the Gallup Tracking Poll for the period July 2 to 9. They each score 47% on the ABC News/Washington Post Poll, for the period July 5 to 8.
Romney leads in only two of the nine polls, 47% to 44% — the Rasmussen Tracking Poll, for the period July 7 to 9. He edges the president 43% to 42% in the Washington Times/JZ Analytics Poll for the period July 6 to 8.
President Obama’s widest lead is on the Reuters/Ipsos Poll, where he enjoys a 6-point margin, 49% to 43%. The survey covers July 5 to 9. The FOX News Poll is most dated of the nine and covers the period June 24 to June 26.
The election likely will be decided by the jobs numbers for September and October, and the three presidential debates before November.
President Obama, a strong debater who is quick on his feet stands to score. Romney is often stiff and can react with anger –turning red– as when Rick Santorum needled him about Romney Care during the primaries.
Based on Romney’s reaction to pressure from Santorum, it’s hard to imagine how Obama could resist a zinger such as: “Well governor Romney, I’m kind of disappointed, I thought you would have been happy that I gave national exposure to your brilliant program, Romney Care. In fact I was worried you would sue me for stealing your idea and calling it Obama Care”.
The president’s chances look decent. Romney has difficulty narrowing the gap in the key battleground states. In those states, the ads by Democrats exposing Romney as the jobs-slashing and out-sourcing CEO of Bain Capital are working.
Even with a struggling economy, with jobs growth having slowed down, Romney’s not seen as the jobs’ messiah, in the swing states. Some of the battleground economies are actually doing better than elsewhere. It also didn’t help that Romney authored an Op-Ed in The New York Times in 2008 saying “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”
The auto industry bail out created thousands of jobs for plant workers and suppliers. Romney also has shown total failure to connect with ordinary people. His statements have harmed him, such as when he said “corporations are people too my friend” and that he’s “not too worried about the very poor.”
Romney can’t shed his elitism label, with revelations that he parked some of his wealth in Swiss accounts and in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. The hidden wealth could not have been helping the American economy.
One of Romney’s biggest challenge is the Latino vote. He can’t win with anything less than 35%. He hasn’t helped his chances with his support for the Draconian Arizona immigration bill –parts of which were recently emasculated by the Supreme Court– and having said he would’ve repealed the Dream Act had it become law.
“Speaking Truth To Empower.”
