The recent polls all show Romney ahead of Obama or a very close race. For example: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/CBSNYTPoll_051412.pdf Romney 46, Obama 43 Among women, Romney has closed the gender gap. Romney 46, Obama 44 Economy 67% rate the economy as bad, 36% say the economy is getting better.
The electoral college is a very different matter. You'd hope Obama would effectively win the same states he did in 2008, so he should have a massive lead in the electoral college. And he does. http://www.2012presidentialelection...g-state-poll-shows-close-romneyobama-matchup/
http://cookpolitical.com/charts/president/ev_scorecard_2012-05-10_07-21-09.php Charlie Cook's political report has the electoral college at 227-210 in favor of Obama with 101 EVs as tossup.
Source is Fox News. Rag on the messenger, but they got it right about how the PR is working against Obama lately. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/15/alarm-grows-among-dems-about-obamas-chances/ Alarm Grows Among Dems About Obama’s Chances It has taken months of bad news, but Democrats increasingly believe that President Obama might just lose his re-election bid. The latest wake-up call comes in the form of a New York Times/CBS poll showing Republican Mitt Romney in the lead not just among registered voters overall, but with women and independents. The Times/CBS survey is unique in that the pollsters called back the same phone numbers they had a month before. In April, Obama and Romney were dead even. Now, Romney leads by 3 points overall. That’s still within the margin of error -- a statistical tie. But the shifts with women, moderates and independents are all statistically significant. Obama lost 5 points with each of those demographics. Team Obama has for months been warning Democrats not to be overconfident and warning of a close election, with the president increasingly sounding the alarm for donors and activists in recent campaign appearances. Since the general election season kicked off in earnest in the last week of March, Obama has had an almost unbroken string of losing weeks, starting with his overheard conversation with former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. There was the back-and-forth with the Supreme Court over his health law, the attack by one of Obama’s advisers on Ann Romney, the GSA Vegas scandal, the hookers in Cartagena and then the baffling case of the gay marriage half-reversion. Some of the problems were just bad luck (hookers), some were just blunders (hot mic) but much of the rest has been about Obama trying to galvanize his base coalition and secure the massive donations he needs to finance the most expensive campaign in history. His trip to New York on Monday was the best example yet. Obama delivered a groaner of a speech at Barnard College in which he did everything but shout “girl power” at the end. And then in an appearance on a left-leaning ladies chat show, ABC’s “The View,” Obama rhapsodized about his partial reversion to previous support for gay marriage in advance of attending a fundraiser with his party’s fundraising shop for “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender” Democrats that featured Ricky Martin, he of Menudo, bikini briefs and “She Bangs.” You need money to win Ohio, but it may not be worth the price of all this gay pride to get it. As the Times poll showed, a huge majority believe Obama’s rhetorical reversion was about politics, not a personal moral journey. Even those who are fine with gay marriage, may find it unseemly to see Obama waving the rainbow flag so vigorously in pursuit of cash. While Obama was in New York, he also stopped by to scoop up some money from Wall Streeters, including some private equity folks -- an industry his campaign was simultaneously describing as parasites and vampires. If you wonder why Obama felt the need to single out JP Morgan Chase and its CEO for praise despite a $2 billion shellacking the firm took on its own investments, fundraisers like these are a big part of the answer. All of this pandering may be necessary to keep Obama’s campaign dreadnaught moving ahead, but it comes at a cost, especially when so much of it is contradictory or confusing.
And on MSNBC this morning, they were outright laughing at the circumstances surrounding the upcoming Democratic Party Convention. You see, it's being held in North Carolina, which just voted against gay marriage, and it's being held at Bank of America Stadium. Bank of America is laying off people, is poster child of the bank bailouts that didn't help wall street, is poster child of the 1% that the occupy crowd seemingly protests against, etc.
Seems like Obama is still winning: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html But it's gotten closer. One thing worth noting is that Obama just doesn't really say much that isn't carefully calculated. We all pretty much know who he is. If the economy nose-dives or gas prices go up a lot, he'll be in big trouble, but he isn't going to shoot himself in the foot. Romney tends to get tongue-tied, and as he really introduces himself to independent voters it's going to be critical to avoid the kind of flubs he's had in the past (and that made Palin look ridiculous). This election is going to be all about money and negative campaigning, and these two are heavyweights on both accounts. So in the end I think they offset each other. If the economy dives, Obama loses. If Romney comes off as a robot (a la Kerry/Gore), Obama wins. If neither happens or both happens, I'd give the edge to Obama purely because he's the incumbent.
Not that I put much stock in anything Fox says, but this showed up on my news feed: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...s-ahead-romney-as-presidential-race-heats-up/ I wonder if it's a combination of Romney's bullying issue, or if Obama finally grew a spine on gay rights, or (as the author thinks) it's just a rebounding economy.
