The latest Gallup Poll has President Barack Obama widening his lead over presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney:
President Barack Obama has maintained at least a slight margin over Mitt Romney in each of the last six Gallup Daily tracking averages, including a 48% to 43% lead among registered voters in the July 2 report, spanning June 25-July 1.
Obama’s current five-percentage-point lead is the same as the margin reported three days ago, and marks his biggest lead in Gallup Daily tracking since April, when for two reporting periods he had a seven-point lead over Romney. The current stretch of six days in which Obama has led Romney in each day’s average is also the longest such streak for the president since April.Romney has not been ahead of Obama by more than two points since mid-May, and Romney’s largest lead of five points occurred in April.
Each Gallup Daily tracking seven-day average includes more than 3,000 registered voters.
The current June 25-July 1 average includes four days of interviewing after the June 28 Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act. Obama’s prior five-point lead, from June 22-28, was based on interviews conducted mostly before the decision. Therefore, although the Supreme Court decision may be a reason for Obama’s currently more positive position, he was gaining on Romney prior to the decision.
The presidential race has exhibited a general tendency this year to regress to parity — each candidate has averaged about 46% support since Gallup Daily tracking began April 11. Thus, it remains to be seen if the two candidates will move back into a more even position in the days and weeks ahead, or if Obama is able to sustain his lead for a longer period of time.
But — as we say over and over — remember that one poll does not a trend make. You have to look at a number of polls. It’s always useful to look at the trending, so here’s Pollster.com’s graph showing an average of 344 polls. It shows — at this point in time (and polls see-saw) Obama on the ascent and Romney flat:
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.