ERIE, Pa. — It’s raining heavily here in Pennsylvania, today. And a new poll also shows how heavily it’s raining on President Barack Obama’s Presidential fortunes: a new poll shows Obama tied with former Massachusetts’ Gov. Mitt Romney in this must-win state.
Of course, after Newt Gingrich’s debate performance last night — which generally wowed most pundits (among others Larry Sabato, arguably the country’s best political pundit, gave him high marks) and has now placed him firmly in the anti-Romney spot as some polls show him the new front-runner in the race — the question is whether the former Massachusetts Governor who seems unable to expand his existing GOP constituency will emerge as the one Obama has to beat.
But, for now, if you assume it’ll be Romney in the end, here is how the match up would look today:
More evidence that President Obama is struggling in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania.
A survey from Public Policy Polling shows that Obama is tied with Republican Mitt Romney at 45% in the Keystone State, though the pollsters said that some of the underlying numbers are bad news for the incumbent.
“If you dig in on the undecided voters, only 24% of them approve of Obama’s job performance to 70% who disapprove,” reports PPL, a North Carolina-based firm. “They may not be completely sold on Romney yet but for the most part if you don’t approve of the incumbent president, you’re not going to vote for him.”
“If those folks really had to make a decision today it’s likely they’d move in Romney’s direction and hand him the state,” the poll added.
But, of course, the election isn’t today — it’s just a little less than a year away.
On the other hand: The White House just scheduled an Obama jobs speech in Scranton, Pa., for Nov. 30.
Just what people want to hear: another Obama jobs speech…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.