If the GOP race comes down to Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, is Romney still the most electable or most competitive against President Obama? This morning, Quinnipiac says that Romney still holds that advantage . . . but there’s not a huge difference.
The top Republican presidential challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, has 46 percent of registered voters to President Barack Obama’s 43 percent. If former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum gets the GOP nomination, he scores 43 percent to President Obama’s 45 percent, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds.
In Florida’s U.S. Senate race, Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson has 41 percent, with 40 percent for his leading Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack.
The president has a solidly negative 42 – 54 percent job approval rating and Florida voters say 52 – 44 percent that he does not deserve a second term in the Oval Office.
“Florida is among the most important swing states in the country and if the election was today President Barack Obama would have difficulty winning its electoral votes,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Quinnipiac also finds that a once-competitive GOP Senate primary doesn’t look competitive at all anymore:
In the U.S. Senate race, Congressman Mack gets 39 percent in the GOP primary, which is held in August. Mike McCalister and former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux are way behind with 6 percent each. No other candidate tops 2 percent. Another 42 percent are undecided.
A small lead in FL is encouraging, but only so much. A small lead in OH would mean a bit more. (CO IA or NV would be mighty fine. VA should come home...)
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse54% of voters disapprove of the job Obama is doing.
52% say he doesn't deserve to be reelected.
Therefore not surprisingly, 55-57% are either certain to or at least considering voting for someone other than Obama (only 43-45% are certain to vote for him.)
The Florida numbers look a lot like the national numbers.
If Obama's approval sinks from here, I don't think there is any way he can win (unless there is a third party candidate to split the conservative vote). However if he can get his approval up just 10% he would be in strong shape. As it currently stand, he is hanging on to the lower rungs of just-barely-electable (could go either way).
But so far nothing Obama has tried has moved his ratings in the right direction for him (Bin Laden's death gave him a 2-week bump; otherwise his ratings tend to drift up slightly when he goes on vacay and stays away from microphones! But this sort of "leading from behind" basically amounts to not-leading and hoping the other guy screws up worse. Sometimes you get lucky (Libya so far), but this president ought to be very defeatable regardless of which Republican runs against him.)
One thing is for sure: Democrats plan to run the ugliest campaign ever. "Win ugly" is their only chance, but it could easily backfire. (I'm waiting for all the 527 ads which will compare Candidate Obama's hopey-changey promises with the flip flops that have followed -- including raising the tone in Washington, bipartisanship, post-racial healing, being the most transparent administration ever, and all those other things his "win ugly" campaign is sure to undercut with vicious partisan mudslinging and racemongering.)
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