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The latest Pew Research poll contains some very bad news for Mitt Romney. According to the poll, President Obama has an eight point lead among registered voters: Obama 51 percent to Romney’s 43 percent. Romney’s problems go much deeper than just trailing by a wide margin in the horserace, however.
The poll found that voters see Obama as significantly better than Romney on a whole range of personal traits, and think Obama would do a better job than Romney handling almost every issue except reducing the federal debt:
In addition to Romney getting low marks on how he would handle most issues, the voters simply don’t like him as much as Obama. President Obama’s favorability rating has recently increased to an impressive 55 percent favorable to 42 percent unfavorable. On the other hand, Romney’s favorability rating remains negative. Only 45 percent view him favorably while 50 hold an unfavorable opinion of him.
Things are looking very dark for Team Romney. Voters aren’t going to replace a president with a challenger they like less, they trust less and they think is less capable of addressing most of the important issues facing the country.
19 Comments
This election is going to be a landslide for the President as I have been saying all along.The Rethugs will lose the House and lose seats in the Senate.Romney is the worst candidate in many years.
I would hope that to be true, however, there’re six or seven weeks before the election. Polls are not always all that accurate given that not all people asked actually participate and some admit to flat-out lying.
Take no comfort in these numbers and just make sure to get out and vote in November, whether by paper or machine, early or on the day. Just do it.
Bad news for Romney. Good news for the country. Altbnough I certainly hope the next four years of Obama will be different than the last four years.
If the house doesn’t turn over, we’re in for a real “deja vu” moment here.
I’m far from convinced that this election will be a landslide (Obama +10 in popular vote). He beat McCain by 7, I’m expecting more like 5. Obama took 365 EV last time, and I don’t see any significant chance that he will get more than 348 EV this time, maybe as few as 303.
A solid victory, but short of a landslide.
I’ve been expecting the Democrats to retake the House all along. With Congressional approval at the lowest ever polled, and the Republicans having 84 freshmen (versus 9 Democratic freshmen), I would be surprised to see only 25 seats flip to the Democrats – Pelosi has been talking 35 and I’m expecting closer to 40, but maybe 35 net is about right.
The Senate is the most interesting case. If current trends hold, the Democrats will have held control against strong odds.
Reid has been quoted as supporting some form of filibuster reform. While I’m sure he will stop short of simple majorities to conduct business, I strongly suspect that he has orders to streamline the appointment process for judges and others. There is a big backlog of empty judge slots and at least two Supreme Court appointments to be made.
Excellent points all.
The repugs didn’t want romney. They tried six other candidates and Ron Paul. I don;t honestly think we can blame them. They even tried Rick “call me frothy” Santorum. Gotta admire their tenacity.
Santorum will be the next guy in line for 2016. We haven’t seen the last of him.
dave, you be “on the ball” today dude. I agree 100%. As soon as the networks declare VA and FL the election will be over. Probably before I get home from Hooters.
PLease no. Don’t even think that.
Who was the last place Mormon??? I kinda liked him.
Huntsman. Smart guy (son of a billionaire, so I hate him). Former governor of Utah. Good looking, telegenic, has gorgeous daughters (so I hate him a little less). Obama’s ambassador to China (I’m sure that in part that was to neutralize him as a potential opponent).
If he switched to the Democratic Party he might have a shot since 2016 will be an open seat. I don’t think he could get the Republican nomination, though he would probably do better than he did this time.
The ladies Huntsman
Romney is toast. Those numbers are telling. He isn’t above 50% in anything. Doesn’t even make it to his favorite number – 47%
Nate Silver wants you to think otherwise–the NYTimes needs the hits.
Love it or hate it, Hillary’s running in 2016. She’s got great favorability numbers now, and the next 3 years out of the political spotlight will only help that.
All this points to re-election. But that the margins are going stronger for President Obama. (He beat John McCain by over 7 percentage points nationwide. Typical pattern is incumbent gains with second full-term victory.)
Fox News, as reported Sept. 20 on MSNBC, even has Obama with Virginia and Ohio at D+7 while Florida is D+5. If those were to be final numbers, he will have won his popular vote by a margin exceeding 2008. (He took Fla. by just under 3 points; Ohio just over 4.5; and Va. over 6.)
Those 365 electoral votes will have also increased. Not to say a dramatic one; probably somewhere in the 370s or, at best, 380s. (Higher than that, going into the 400s, would be a wave because a further Democratic shift would reveal Mitt Romney as an utter bomb for his Republican Party. One would think having Paul Ryan as his v.p. more than meets that loathsome criteria.)
Why would Obama be any better in the second term, when he no longer cares about re-election?
He is one of the 47% of Americans that pays no income taxes. That is true of thousands of very rich people.
He did, however, pay capital gains taxes on his income in the one year of tax returns he’s deigned to make public so far.
http://www.cfr.org/us-election-2012/republican-debate-transcript-tampa-florida-january-2012/p27180
Translation: Romney owed only capital gains taxes the prior two years, no income taxes. So, per Romney, he and his wife are among the 47% who he could never be able to persuade to vote for him.
Others among the 47% who don’t pay federal income taxes: the working poor, who don’t earn enough to owe federal income taxes, but who do pay payroll taxes and a host of other taxes;* military receiving combat pay, which is exempt from federal income taxes; seniors and disabled people receiving Social Security, which is also exempt from federal income taxes (the majority of whom vote Republican; people in college and grad school, etc.
As an example of “working poor:” a family of five whose total income is $50,000 a year should not owe federal income taxes.
But, yes, people on welfare account for a small percentage of the 47% who don’t pay federal income taxes. Romney’s father, George was on welfare as a kid, along with his siblings and his parents, so, per Romney, Romney’s grandparents, father, aunts and uncles are among the kinds of people Romney would never be able to persuade to vote for him.
Poor Willard.
Few things would get the Republican vote out faster and with more determination than Hillary’s running for President.
Democratic bigwigs like Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy got Obama through the primaries in 2008 despite Hillary’s initial 30 point lead because they thought she had “too much baggage” to be their candidate.
She still has that same baggage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_clinton#Whitewater_and_other_investigations
So, I don’t know that even the PTB in the Democratic Party would back her in 2016. I certainly don’t want to have all those same fights with Republicans again and who knows how many people she treated imperiously while First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State who will come out of the woodwork if she runs again.
Then again, Obama and the Party now owe her husband big time. And, calculated or not, that was a touching moment when she reached out her hand to Obama on camera when they spoke about the attacks on the embassies. Maybe he will convince the Party this time?
I sure would not vote for anyone who had been found to lie under oath and who ignored a subpoena for a year, let alone a lawyer who vowed to be an officer of the court. Of course, her husband lied under oath as well, but she does not have either his public speaking ability or his personal charm and charisma.
Besides, we have had too many dynasties in politics already and she, like her husband, was a co-founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, which took the Party to the right big time.
Is that the same filibuster reform Reid’s been supporting for the past four years? If so, it was pretty mild. At that, he’s done nothing about it, which tells me that it is either the same ole, same old Capitol kabuki or he cannot get his caucus to come along with him.