The first polls portraying a head to head matchup between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are out. They vary, as is expected, with the CNN poll giving the incumbent president a good, but not insurmountable, lead, while the Gallup poll gives Mitt Romney a slight lead that's within the margin of error.
The most important news, however, is that President Obama is the first incumbent to trail in the poll at this point in the election since 1976. However, some pundits have pointed out that, for example, Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan at this point in 1980 (in fact he led until a week before the election) and George H.W. Bush led Bill Clinton at this point in 1992. And even looking at 1976, Gerald Ford almost pulled off a stunning comeback against then-challenger Jimmy Carter.
Of course, national opinion polls have to be considered in context of the Electoral College. President Obama's actually doing better there, leading in most key battleground states at this point. With the disparate polling results, it's begged the question on The Atlantic.com of whether President Obama will become the first incumbent president re-elected without winning a majority of the popular vote. One could easily see the scenario of President Obama winning a tough re-election fight, the Democrats taking back the House (or at least cutting into the GOP margin) and the Democrats losing the Senate. Essentially, neither party would have much of a mandate.
But we've got a long way to go yet.
Ehh...I'm skeptical of that CNN poll for a number of reasons.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, this CNN poll won't release the full crosstabs. They also bring in some "adults" into the poll. "Likely Voters" are the best survey group, and "registered voters" are the second. Adults are typically are terrible group to poll because you aren't looking at if they will vote.
Also, we're still at a point where the incumbent leads the challenger. I don't buy any nationwide polls this early, especially since there's a Gallup Poll basically contradicting the CNN one.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153902/Romney-Obama-Tight-Race-Gallup-Daily-Tracking-Begins.aspx
I also included the Gallup Poll at the end of the first paragraph. As I indicated in the blog post, it is far too early but right now it offers some interesting parallels with other races.
DeleteWhoops! I read over that part! And you are right it's a long way out. A lot of campaigning to do.
DeleteOne of the posters at conservative blog HotAir took a look at the CNN poll as well. Some interesting questions that need to be looked at. http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/17/about-that-cnn-poll/