Two polls given top billing at The Hill yesterday — Fox and Gallup — show Obama and Romney to be even — uh, deadlocked. Not really deadlocked though. Romney maybe, but Obama’s popularity continues to give him an advantage.
Obama continues to be seen more favorably than his Republican challenger, with 54 percent of those surveyed saying they have a positive opinion of the president versus just 46 percent for Romney. That’s actually the president’s best favorability number since January of 2011, and Romney’s most encouraging number since Fox began polling on his likability.
The president also leads Romney on almost every favorable personality quality, perceived by voters as being more honest, being a strong leader, having the right experience and taking personal responsibility.
Obama also continues to lead Romney on some key voter concerns, including handling education, fighting terrorism, bringing the country together and even handling healthcare. But Romney edges the president on economic issues expected to be key to the November election, like encouraging job creation, handling taxes and cutting government spending. …The Hill
Which means Americans expressing their opinions are screwed-up — “This guy is better and I like him a lot more but I may vote for the other guy…” Or the pollsters aren’t getting good feedback. Their either/or questions are bound to get weird answers.
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Dan Amira, at New York Magazine, devised a new way of predicting election outcomes — another angle: follow the money.
Last October, we tried a little experiment, ranking the states by their per-capita donations to President Obama’s reelection campaign and then grouping them on a map into five tiers of generosity. We found that the donor map corresponded pretty well with the electoral map, or at least what the electoral map is expected to look like. While we don’t expect that the donor map can predict the outcomes in November, we do think it might serve as useful gauge of voter enthusiasm for the Obama candidacy. …Daily Intel
So what are we looking at now, at the threshold of a presidential election?
Arizona moved up five spots since October, from 27th to 22nd in terms of per-capita donors. What caused this movement isn’t clear — maybe liberal Hispanics were motivated to donate after hearing the GOP candidates take hard-line positions on immigration during the primaries — but whatever it was, it’s probably a good sign for the Obama campaign, which has hopes of competing in the traditionally Republican-friendly state in 2012. Same goes for the upward movement of Pennsylvania, and, to a lesser extent, Michigan.
According to math, if some states moved up, other states moved down. We don’t think the Obama campaign will lose any sleep over North Dakota’s five-spot plunge, but Virginia’s three-slot drop could be a bad omen. Or, maybe it’s nothing. You don’t want to read too much into these things. It could just be that Virginia’s many pro-Obama lobbyists and government officials maxed out on their contributions to the Obama campaign at the beginning of the race. Could be anything, really. Something to keep an eye on, though. …Daily Intel