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What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, November 12, 2011 

Poll after poll shows former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to be the Republican presidential contender voters are most comfortable with and the GOP hopeful who continues to run most competitively with President Obama. But that’s not enough for a lot of Republican voters. 

Just this past week, new surveying found that Romney is the GOP candidate viewed most favorably by all voters.   This parallels other recent findings that voters see Romney as the GOP hopeful most qualified to be president and the candidate for the White House closest to the mainstream in a group that includes Obama. 

The president and Romney remain in a dead heat in their latest hypothetical Election 2012 matchup. Georgia businessman Herman Cain lost ground to Obama this past week, now trailing him 48% to 37%. The week before, Cain trailed 43% to 38%.New numbers will be released for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Monday. 

Still, Cain remains ahead of Romney among Likely Republican Primary Voters, and new numbers from Florida show him leading the pack with 30% support to Romney’s 24% among that state’s Likely GOP Primary Voters. Cain also leads Romney among Republicans in Iowa and South Carolina. As he has in other recent polls, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich runs third in Florida with 19% support, while the other candidates are all in single digits. 

Gingrich is gaining ground as another anti-Romney favorite while Cain continues to battle the sexual harassment allegations. Most voters (51%) now believe those allegations may be both serious and true, up from 39% a week ago. At the same time, two-thirds believe Cain’s ethics are at least as good as most politicians. 

Helping Cain among some voters is the belief by 54% that most reporters would publish damaging allegations first and seek to verify the facts later if the story hurts a candidate they don’t like. Thirty-four percent (34%) disagree. Most Republicans and unaffiliated voters think reporters would publish the damaging information first, while Democrats are evenly divided. 

“Voters have come to view reporters as activists in the political process rather than observers,” notes Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. “Most believe a typical reporter will use different standards based upon whether they like or dislike a candidate.” 

Scott will talk about our latest political numbers and the prospects for a serious third party challenge on Sunday’ss edition of The Rasmussen Report on radio. Catch The Rasmussen Report - and give Scott a call - this Sunday live at 3:06 p.m. Eastern time. It can be heard on WLS 890 AM in Chicago, WMAL 105.9 FM and 630 AM in Washington, D.C. and online everywhere. 

With continuing questions about his job performance as measured by the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, Obama trails a generic Republican candidate again this past week as he has in weekly surveys for nearly four months now. But Rasmussen Reports has begun testing that matchup in some key electoral states and found this past week that Obama trails the generic Republican in Ohio and Florida where most voters disapprove of the job the president is doing. Even in reliably Democratic California, the president’s job approval rating has fallen below 50%, and he holds only a modest 45% to 41% lead over a Generic Republican. 

Yet again when the GOP candidate has a name, Romney’s the only one who poses a consistent challenge to the president among all voters. No state, for example, has supported the winner in more presidential elections than Missouri, and right now Romney is the only Republican presidential hopeful who leads Obama among Show Me State voters. Obama edges Gingrich here 47% to 43%, and Cain trails the incumbent 47% to 39%. 

Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill runs essentially even with two Republican challengers - former State Treasurer Sarah Steelman and Congressman Todd Akin - in the first Rasmussen Reports look at her reelection bid in 2012. 

Democrats have far more seats at risk in the next year’s Senate elections, and voters remain furious at Congress and the policies the government is pushing. Rasmussen Reports this past week asked Likely U.S. Voters how angry they are at five segments of society regularly in the news, and most voters expressed at least some anger at all of them. But the intensity of that anger was strongest for Congress and the large banks bailed out by the federal government. 

Anger at the bailouts is also one of the driving forces behind the Occupy Wall Street protests around the country. However, voters now tend to view the protesters negatively and regard their views as liberal and out of step with mainstream America. They’re almost evenly divided over whether the protesters genuinely want to change the system or just want a bailout of their own. 

Another of Congress’ unpopular recent decisions was the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed early in 2009. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a few days ago that the stimulus plan kept the national unemployment rate from being much worse than it is, but Americans believe overwhelmingly that the stimulus did not reduce unemployment and did not help the economy. 

Just seven percent (7%) of consumers now rate the U.S. economy as good or excellent, and only eight percent (8%) of investors agree, according to the Rasmussen Reports Consumer and Investor Indexes which measure daily confidence levels among both groups. 

Only 17% of Likely U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, down 11 points from this time last year. Since the third week in July, the number of voters who are confident in the nation’s current course has resembled levels measured in the final months of the Bush administration. 

A plurality (45%) of American workers believes they’ll be earning about the same amount of money a year from today. Thirty-six percent (36%) think they’ll be earning more, while 12% expect to earn less. These numbers have changed little over recent months, but in April 2009, by contrast, 49% of workers thought they’d be making more money the following year. 

Only roughly one-in-three workers (35%) now plan on staying at their current company for more than five years, the lowest level measured since early 2009. 

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