A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll suggests that President Barack Obama’s poll numbers have risen due to a lot of work — a lot of work Republicans running for their party’s nomination have done on their own and their party’s image. With polls like this, Team Obama must be praying for a long, drawn out, down to the wire convention fight:
A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll reveals the prolonged nominating battle is taking a toll on the GOP candidates and finds the president’s standing significantly improved from late last year.
President Barack Obama’s approval rating is 53 percent, up 9 percentage points in four months. Matched up against his Republican opponents, he leads Mitt Romney by 10 points (53-43) and Rick Santorum by 11 (53-42). Even against a generic, unnamed Republican untarnished by attacks, Obama is up 5 percentage points. In November, he was tied.
AND:
“We’ve not been talking about which would do a better job of running against Obama. We’ve been talking about who is the most or who is the least conservative,” said Republican pollster Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group, who helped conduct the bipartisan poll. “That is a problem for Republicans.”
Obama still has a related number that is dangerously low for him. But, even here, it is on the upswing:
A third of Americans believe the country is on the right track — disconcertingly low for a president eight months before an election. Yet that figure is twice the number who believed it in November.
I’m most surprised about the number for independents which indicates they find Santorum more appealing than Romney — but it’s clear that many indes are only now learning more about Santorum:
Romney is bloodied after nine contests, five of which he has lost. Only 33 percent of independents view him favorably, compared with 51 percent who see him in an unfavorable light. In a head-to-head match-up against Obama among independents, Romney now trails 49 percent to 27 percent.
Among Republican voters nationally, Santorum narrowly edges out Romney, 36 percent to 34 percent. Newt Gingrich is a distant third with 13 percent, and Ron Paul gets only 7 percent.
Santorum’s slight advantage is striking because Romney holds significant leads over the former Pennsylvania senator among likely primary voters on which of the four remaining candidates would best handle jobs (14 percentage points), the economy (19) and balancing the budget (21). Of five areas tested, Santorum leads Romney only on social issues.
Among independents, Santorum fares better than Romney: He is viewed favorably by 40 percent and unfavorably by 32 percent. But he remains largely undefined: 28 percent of independents either have no opinion of the ex-senator or have never heard of him. Even among Republicans, that number is 17 percent.
An easy prediction:
If Santorum gets the nomination Obama & Co will quickly and most likely easily define him for independent voters
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73308.html#ixzz1naNOYfOL
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.