Two new polls show President Barack Obama pulling ahead in Michigan and Colorado. The Michigan poll is especially jarring:
President Barack Obama, fresh off a Democratic National Convention in which the turnaround of Michigan’s signature auto industry played a central role, heads into the final 2 months of the campaign with the state’s voters solidly behind him.
A poll done by EPIC-MRA of Lansing for the Free Press, WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) and other media partners showed Obama with a commanding 10-point lead over Michigan-born-and-raised Mitt Romney, whose chances in the state may have been seriously hurt by last week’s Democratic convention in Charlotte.
Democrats made the 2009 rescue of General Motors and Chrysler — and the jobs it saved nationwide — a central theme of the convention, with autoworkers, UAW President Bob King and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm among the speakers.
“When the whole theme for the Democrats is Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive … that’s got to help in Michigan and Ohio and a couple other states as well,” said EPIC-MRA pollster Bernie Porn.
n EPIC-MRA’s last statewide poll, an automated survey taken Aug. 28 before Ann Romney spoke at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, laying out a case for her husband Mitt to be elected, Obama held a slim 49%-46% lead over Romney. In the new poll, conducted from Saturday through Tuesday, Obama led Romney 47% -37%.
EPIC-MRA surveyed 600 likely November voters for the poll which has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Obama leads among the key bloc of independent voters 36% to 27%, with 37% undecided – perhaps giving Romney room to improve. But in past EPIC-MRA polls, Romney led among independents, suggesting they may be having second thoughts.
Obama also led among both men (42%-40%) and women (52%-36%) and there was also sharp break in voter motivation: While 76% of the president’s supporters said they were voting for him as opposed to 21% who said they were voting against Romney, only 54% of Romney’s supporters were voting specifically for him, while 43% who were voting against Obama.
In Colorado:
The first poll of Colorado voters since the Democratic National Convention shows President Barack Obama with a five point lead over Republican Mitt Romney, FOX31 Denver is first to report.
The new survey by OnSight Public Affairs and Project New America, showing Obama with a 49-44 percent lead over Romney, was released Thursday morning, just hours before Obama’s campaign is set to rally supporters in Golden.
The survey of 500 likely Colorado voters shows only a one point post-DNC bounce for Obama, who had a 48-44 percent lead over Romney in the last poll conducted by OnSight three weeks ago on the eve of the Republican National Convention.
“Colorado appears to be Obama’s to lose at this point,” OnSight’s Mike Melanson told FOX31 Denver. “He’s consolidating his advantage with women voters and, more importantly, with unaffiliated voters.”
In the Aug. 24 survey, Obama lead Romney among women voters by a 51-44 percent margin; that margin is mostly unchanged with Obama now ahead 51-43 percent.
Notably, Obama broadened his advantage with unaffiliated voters, which stood at 50-36 back in August and is now at 55-32, according to OnSight’s pollster, Chris Keating.
I just got back from 3 weeks in Colorado: nearly two weeks in Pueblo and the rest of the time in Boulder. And I found one “motif” I found among voters who were either independent or didn’t consider themselves liberal Democrats in both cities was: they don’t like Paul Ryan and they feel the party is too beholden to its right wing and not speaking to them.
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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.