Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Romney Rises - Leads Obama, GOP - ABC News/WaPo Poll


Mitt Romney, the newly announced 2012 Republican Presidential candidate, has moved into a lead over incumbent President, Barrack Obama, 49 – 46, in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll released today. Romney out polls the President among Registered Voters and runs tied at 47 – 47, when just polled among adults. 

Within the race for the GOP Nomination, Romney leads the field with 21%, followed by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin at 17%. Palin’s numbers in the GOP have improved since launching her “One Nation” bus tour. However, she still face a steep climb to victory both within the GOP and in a head to head race aginst Obama, where she trails by 17 points, 59 – 32.

Interestingly, Romney leads Palin among Conservatives and runs even with her in support from the Tea Party, dispelling the oft repeated Talk Radio/Inside the Beltway thinking, these are the bastions of Palin's support.
Palin faces a daunting 41% within her own party who flatly rule out voting for her, while only 18% feel this way about Romney. overall, 64% of Americans say they would not enter the voting booth for her. Palin's problem stem from 39% viewing her as unqualified for the Oval Office.
When GOP respondents were asked about their second choice in the race, Romney led here as well, earning 17% to Palin’s second place 13%. Grouping the first/second choice questions together, the numbers show Romney opens a slightly wider 6 point lead over Palin, 34 -  28%

The other GOP candidates continue to languish is single digits, showing how the two GOP leaders – Palin and Romney – together dominated the news in recent days, making it tougher for the fledgling efforts of Michelle Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain to gain traction.

In addition, potential candidates failed to generate any genuine strength in this poll.

While the GOP is far from settled or overly enthused about the field according to the poll, the GOP might just decide to rally ‘round Romney, as he runs formidably against President Obama in several key areas, both geographically and demographically.

Here are the results of the GOP race:
 The poll shows Romney may face some resistence due to his Massachusetts health care reform, but as of now, it is not impeding his chances.

ABC News/Washington Post National Republican Primary (PDF)
  • Romney – 21% (16)
  • Palin – 17% (5)
  • Giuliani – 8% (-)
  • Gingrich – 6% (2)
  • Paul – 6% (2)
  • Cain – 4% (-)
  • Pawlenty – 4% (1)
  • Bachmann – 3% (1)
  • Perry – 3% (-)
  • Huntsman – 1% (*)
  • Santorum – 1% (*)
  • Johnson – * (-)
  • Other / no opinion – 17%

Among the highlights of the poll by Langer Research: 

  • Romney gains 72 percent support from the 46 percent of Americans who describe themselves as supporters of the Tea Party political movement. But, showing breadth, he also draws in 48 percent of independents, the key swing voters. 

  • Romney currently fares better against Obama than John McCain did in 2008 among several important groups, and some surprising ones. Romney and Obama run evenly among women, a group Obama won by 13 points in 2008; among white women, while McCain won by 7 points, Romney leads by 18. McCain won white Catholics, an important swing-voting group, by 5 points, while Romney leads here by 19. 

  • Romney runs about evenly with Obama in the Midwest, a region Obama won by 10 points in 2008. While 18-29-year-olds still overwhelmingly favor Obama regardless of the Republican candidate, his margin against Romney is 23 points, vs. 34 points against McCain. Even among liberals, Obama's edge is down -- 79 points vs. McCain, 61 vs. Romney. 

  • A vast 89 percent of Americans say the economy’s in bad shape. It’s ranged from 87 to 94 percent steadily since spring 2008. This gets old; people want relief. But 57 percent say that in terms of their own experience, the economy has not yet even begun to recover from the recession. And among the minority that says a recovery has begun, 81 percent say it’s a weak one.

  • The president’s bin Laden bounce is gone. He had a 47 percent job approval rating in April. That bounced to 56 percent in a Post/Pew poll immediately after Osama bin Laden was killed. It’s back, exactly, to 47 percent now. Forty-nine percent disapprove of the president’s performance, including 53 percent of independents, and strong disapprovers outnumber strong approvers by 10 points.
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Read the full story HERE.

Methodology -- This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone June 2-5, 2011, among a random national sample of 1,002 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results for the full sample have a 3.5-point error margin.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like this poll...Palin went from 5% to 17% - yeah I can deal with that kind of second place.

jerseyrepublican

marK said...

I don't blame you a bit, Jersey. Sarah's single digit numbers were quite ominous, but these new numbers spring her right back into contention.

That has got to be encouraging to you guys.

Anonymous said...

And this from a yahoo poster is even more encouraging!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110606/us_ac/8597921_a_plea_to_fellow_republicans__stop_defending_sarah_palin

I think her numbers will drop again, once the polls reflect her latest gaff.

Ellie :)

Anonymous said...

Ellie,

Her polls are going to drop because this guy wrote an opinion piece. Umm...ok.

A.J.R.

Joe said...

WOW - This is great guys! Romney lands big doners, including TPaw fundraiser and Barbour's nephew! - http://race42012.com/2011/06/07/romney-lands-big-donors-including-a-pawlenty-fundraiser/

Anonymous said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2011/jun/07/margaretthatcher-sarahpalin

Ohio JOE said...

Yes, this is good news Jersey. While I take ABC polls with a grain of salt, if we take all recent polls in their entirety, Mrs. Palin is clearly the current leader of all non-Romney candidates. Perhaps there will be another candidate to emerge within the non-Romney camp, but right now she leads which is not a bad position to be in.

BOSMAN said...

Great News Doug,

The take away isn't how well Romney is doing, NO SURPRISE.

It's HOW BADLY Palin and the others are doing vs, Obama where Romney leads him with registered voters 49 to 46.

Here is a graph of the match-ups vs Obama with ALL VOTERS!

And Oh, this doesn't help Palin either:

"Palin faces a daunting 41% within her own party who flatly rule out voting for her, while only 18% feel this way about Romney. overall, 64% of Americans say they would not enter the voting booth for her."

Revolution 2012 said...

I think you're going to see the beginning of Romney leaving EVERYONE in his dust!

Sarahnara said...

I found this graph that shows the history of Palin's support, DEVASTATING!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/behind-the-numbers/StandingArt/Palin_060611.jpg?uuid=3odBgpCVEeCz1QZ-Z06mSg

Machtyn said...

Yes, this poll doesn't put Palin in a good position when running head-to-head against Obama. She loses by the most of any contenders, by 15%.

After Romney, Gingrich is the next closest to Obama, losing by 6% (while Romney is up by 3%).

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

Anonymous said...

Good Work, Doug. Things are looking great for Romney.

-Martha