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Rasmussen...
What they told
us - Reviewing last week’s polls
Saturday, April 14, 2012
The game is on: Mitt Romney is now the presumptive Republican
presidential nominee following Rick Santorum’s decision Tuesday to put
his campaign on hold.
Romney has been at center stage during the GOP primary process. Now,
Scott Rasmussen explains in his latest syndicated column, President
Obama “becomes the defining figure of the general election campaign.
Now it’s about Obama, not Romney, as the election becomes primarily a
referendum on his first term in office.”
The two men have been running neck-and-neck for weeks in our daily
presidential tracking poll, and it’ll be interesting to see if the
numbers change in any way now that the Republican contest is
essentially at an end. Rasmussen Reports will continue releasing daily
Obama-Romney matchup findings every morning at 9:30 Eastern from now
until Election Day.
Speaking of daily, beginning Monday, Scott will be on the air three
times a day Monday through Friday with news updates, including the
latest matchup numbers, on the WOR Radio Network. Listen for the
one-minute editions of “The Rasmussen Report” on radio stations in your
area. If you can’t find it, encourage your favorite station to sign up.
Voters now are expressing more confidence in Romney than in Obama when
it comes to the economy - by a 49% to 39% margin, but they’re more
evenly divided on several other key issues. However, voters
overwhelmingly trust their own judgment on economic matters more than
the judgment of either presidential candidate.
The economy continues to be by far the most important issue as far as
voters are concerned, with health care in second place. When it comes
to health care, 46% trust Romney more, but nearly as many (42%) place
more confidence in Obama. The narrowness of the gap between the two is
telling since most voters favor repeal of the president’s health care
law and expect the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn it. But Romney has
been criticized by his GOP opponents for helping to father a health
care law in Massachusetts that was, in part, a model for the national
legislation. He says he will repeal Obama’s law, however, if elected.
Just before its recent highly publicized hearing on the
constitutionality of the health care law, ratings for the Supreme Court
had fallen to the lowest level ever measured by Rasmussen Reports. Now,
following the hearings, approval of the court is way up. Forty-one
percent (41%) now rate the Supreme Court’s performance as good or
excellent, up 13 points from 28% in mid-March and the court’s highest
ratings in two-and-a-half years.
The government bailouts of the auto and financial industries have been
just as unpopular as the health care law, and voters continue to
dislike them both. But they now view the auto industry bailout more
positively than the one given to banks and insurance companies. We’ll
be watching to see how the bailout issue plays on the campaign trail
since Romney favored the financial bailouts but opposes the ones given
to General Motors and Chrysler.
In our first look at one of the key swing states in this year’s
presidential election, Romney edges Obama 46% to 44% in North Carolina.
But the president holds double-digit leads in Romney’s home state of
Massachusetts and in New Mexico. He won all three states over John
McCain in 2008, North Carolina just barely, the others by comfortable
margins.
Republican Senator Scott Brown and his chief Democratic challenger,
Elizabeth Warren, are now running neck-and-neck in Massachusetts’
red-hot U.S. Senate race. Warren’s barely ahead 46% to 45% after
trailing Brown by five in late February.
With Romney now the presumptive nominee, speculation has quickly
shifted to possible running mates. So Rasmussen Reports has begun
testing the waters on some of the more prominent names being mentioned
as vice presidential candidates. New Jersey’s outspoken Governor Chris
Christie is the best liked of the first group of five, edging out
Santorum. Among Republicans though, Santorum is slightly ahead, closely
followed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Christie and Wisconsin
Congressman Paul Ryan, the party’s congressional budget architect.
For the third week in a row, only 29% of Likely U.S. Voters say the
country is heading in the right direction. That remains down five
points from a recent high of 34% measured in early February. Sixty-four
percent (64%) of voters still think the country is heading down the
wrong track.
By week’s end, the Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures daily
confidence among that group, had fallen nine points since the
government’s release of a disappointing jobs report a week earlier. The
Rasmussen Investor Index was down even more.
Nearly half (48%) of American Adults continue to lack confidence in the
stability of the U.S. banking industry. The number lacking confidence
in U.S. banks has hovered around the 50% mark in regular tracking for
most surveys since February 2009. By contrast, in July 2008, just
before the Wall Street meltdown, 68% of adults were confident in the
banking system, and only 28% were not.
After a brief bounce in confidence in March, a majority of Americans
now lack faith in the Federal Reserve Board to keep inflation under
control and interest rates down. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of
Americans remain concerned about inflation. Yet while 69% expect to
spend more on groceries one year from today, that’s down 10 points from
last month and is the lowest level measured since November.
Is America moving toward a cashless society? Forty-three percent (43%)
of Americans say they’ve gone through a full week without paying for
anything with cash or coins. Just 24% of adults now typically pay with
cash when they buy groceries, while most opt instead for a debit or
credit card.
As for unemployment, the national unemployment rate dipped slightly in
March but mostly because more Americans stopped looking for work.
Thirty-eight percent (38%) now believe it would be good for the economy
if the government hired the long-term unemployed. That’s up only
slightly from the past several months but is the highest level measured
since regular tracking began in October 2010.
Where’s that money going to come from? Well, for one thing, voters
increasingly think the United States is putting too much money into
defense. Thirty-six percent (36%) now feel the country spends too much
on the military and national security. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say
the country doesn’t spend enough, while another 27% say the amount
spent is about right.
Scott Rasmussen offers some other voter-tested budget solutions in his
New York Times bestselling book, The People’s Money: How the American
People Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt. He
contends that voters are ready to support the kind of long-term
thoughtful changes needed to balance the budget and eliminate the
federal debt. The only thing standing in the way is a Political Class
committed to defending the status quo.
Americans recognize more strongly than ever that there is a conflict
between economic growth and environmental protection. Support for
investing in fossil fuels like oil and gas is at a new high amidst
near-record gas prices and the ongoing political debate over
development of the Keystone XL pipeline which the president has blocked
for environmental reasons.
Voters tend to think the actions of the Environmental Protection Agency
are bad for the economy and hold decidedly mixed feelings about one of
its guiding policies, the federal Endangered Species Act.
Republicans hold a five-point lead over Democrats – 45% to 40% - on the
latest Generic Congressional Ballot.
Read the rest of this article with links at Rasmussen
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