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Rasmussen…
What
They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, October 13, 2012
38%
Say U.S. Heading in Right
Direction
Generic Congressional Ballot:
Democrats 44%, Republicans 43%
Senate Balance of Power: Dems 48
GOP 45 Toss-Ups 7
Just 14% Rate The Economy As Good
or Excellent
The
math is pretty simple: The Big
Three are Florida, Ohio and Virginia. It is virtually impossible for
Mitt
Romney to win the White House without winning at least two of the
three, and
right now he’s ahead by two in Virginia and has widened his lead in
Florida to
four.
If
Romney wins all three states, he
is likely to win the election. President Obama can keep his job if he
wins two
out of the three, and the president is still holding on in Ohio where
he leads
by one.
Yet
while many pundits have
suggested that the president’s reelection campaign is in free fall
since his
subpar debate performance, Scott Rasmussen argues in his latest weekly
syndicated column that it’s not quite that simple. “The reality is that
a very
close race shifted every so slightly from narrowly favoring President
Obama to
narrowly favoring Mitt Romney."
Don’t
let the pundits’
preoccupations fool you, Scott warns. “If nothing changes in the real
world,
the race will remain close until Election Day.”
So
where does the presidential race
stand right now? The daily Presidential Tracking Poll and the daily
Swing State
survey continue to show the two candidates running neck and neck.
The
Rasmussen Reports Electoral
College Projections currently show Obama with 237 Electoral College
votes
locked up or leaning his way to Romney’s 181. Ten states with a total
of 120
votes are Toss-Ups. The magic number is 270.
In
addition to the Big Three, other
Toss-Ups include Colorado where the president is up by one point, Iowa
and
Wisconsin where he’s ahead by two and North Carolina where Romney’s
ahead by
three.
Looking
at some more traditionally
Democratic states, Obama is out front by five points in Pennsylvania,
six in
Connecticut, seven in Michigan and a comfortable 11 in New Mexico.
The
candidates are now tied in
Nevada and New Hampshire.
Despite
his stumbling debate
performance, Obama is still considered the favorite in the race for the
White
House. Fifty-five percent (55%) of Likely U.S. Voters believe that
regardless
of whom they want to win, Obama is most likely to win the presidential
election
this year.
Consumer
and investor confidence is
up following last week’s announcement that the national unemployment
rate had
fallen below 8% for the first time in three-and-a-half years.
Thirty-eight
percent (38%) of
voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, the
highest level
of optimism since June 2009. That‘s
up
14 points from 24% at the beginning of the year and up 22 points from
16% a
year ago. Fifty-seven percent (57%) continue to think the country is
heading
down the wrong track, up two points from the previous week.
But
voter unhappiness with a couple
of the president’s key initiatives is unchanged. Most voters continue
to favor
repeal of Obama’s national health care law, with fewer than one-in-five
who
believe the law will reduce health care costs as its supporters
promised.
The
president’s biggest legislative
victory could, in fact, be his biggest liability, Scott Rasmussen
points out in
a new radio update. Senior citizens are the biggest opponents of the
health
care law and are highly motivated to vote this election cycle compared
to four
years ago, he says. (Catch Scott’s radio updates Monday through Friday
on stations
across the country.)
The
auto bailouts still rankle a
lot of car buyers. More Americans than ever are more likely to buy a
Ford
because it's made by the one Big Three automaker who didn't take a
federal
government bailout. By the same measure, most Americans are still
unlikely to
buy a General Motors product.
Voters
again trust Romney slightly
more than the president in five key policy areas regularly tracked by
Rasmussen
Reports. The widest gap in trust continues to be the economy where
Romney has a
seven-point lead.
The
impact of the economy and
health care on this year’s election will be the hot topics on this
weekend’s
edition of What America Thinks, Scott Rasmussen’s new television show
airing in
over 60 markets nationwide. Check the list of stations here.
Don’t
expect last Thursday night’s
debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Romney’s running mate,
Congressman
Paul Ryan, to change things. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of likely voters
consider the performance of the vice presidential candidates in the
debate to
be at least somewhat important to how they will vote, but that includes
just
18% who view it as Very Important. Four years ago just before Biden
debated
then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, 72% described their debate
performances as important,
with 34% who considered them Very Important to their vote.
Democrats
now lead Republicans by
one point on the Generic Congressional Ballot.
This is the second time in the past five
weeks that Democrats have led
on the ballot after Republicans have been ahead virtually every week
since June
2009.
The
Rasmussen Reports Senate
Balance of Power rankings suggest that GOP hopes of taking over the
Senate are
fast fading. Democrats have double-digit leads in the Senate races in
Florida
and New Mexico. Strong Republican candidates in Connecticut and
Wisconsin now
trail by five points and four points respectively. Democratic
challenger
Elizabeth Warren has broken the tie in her race with GOP Senator Scott
Brown in
Massachusetts.
On
the plus side for Republicans,
incumbent Nevada Senator Dean Heller has moved ahead of his Democratic
opponent
by three. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown is locked in a tie with his
GOP foe
Josh Mandel in Ohio, and Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. has just
a
four-point lead on Republican Tom Smith…
Read
the rest of the article with
links at Rasmussen
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