President Obama tied in generic 2012 matchup

[Barry O'Bama]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32837.html

President Barack Obama leads a generic Republican candidate by only 2 percentage points in a potential 2012 matchup, according to a new Gallup Poll out Thursday that also shows a continued drift of independents away from Democrats.

Obama leads 44 percent to 42 percent, a statistical dead heat, against a nameless Republican, according to the survey of 1,025 adults nationwide.

Not surprisingly, the poll shows that Democrats strongly believe the president should be reelected, while Republicans would like to see one of their own in the White House.

But among independent voters, 45 percent would back a Republican and only 31 percent would favor the president. Twenty-four percent of independents are not sure if they would vote for Obama or a Republican candidate.

The gap among independents is similar to what Democrats have experienced in the recent statewide races in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts, where Republicans were able to win by piecing together a coalition that included people who voted for the president. Obama won independent voters by 8 percentage points in 2008, in a spread of 52 percent to 44 percent, according to network exit polls.

“American voters are at this point about equally divided as to whether they would reelect Obama or the Republican candidate as president,” Gallup pollster Jeffrey Jones wrote in his analysis of the survey. Jones cautioned, however, that “the current data updates Obama's reelection prospects but generally would not hold much predictive value for the actual election outcome more than two years from now.”

While independents seem to be tempted with the idea of supporting a Republican over Obama, there is little agreement on which of the many potential candidates should be the GOP nominee.

Just among the self-identified Republicans and GOP-leaning candidates, only two candidates polled in the double digits when respondents were asked to name who they would like to see as the party’s nominee against Obama.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney led the field with 14 percent, followed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at 11 percent.

The GOP’s 2008 nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, came in third with 7 percent, followed by newly minted Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown with 4 percent.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal were all picked by 3 percent or less of those surveyed.

The poll was conducted Feb. 1-3 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

[EVAY]

Frankly, I would have expected the numbers to be much worse for Obama. The real challenge for Republicans, I think, is to put forward someone who independents can feel comfortable with and at the same time get past the crazies on the far, far right.

Independents have been saying very clearly for some time that they are open to another candidate. They have just as clearly said that they are in favor of some bipartisanship. They keep saying that they want Washington to work, and seem to blame ALL congressmen of BOTH parties just about equally for the gridlock they see.

I get the impression sometimes that rank-and-file republicans want to believe that as long as Obama is less 'popular' than he was in the immediate aftermath of the election, that the Republican party is gonna make hay in November of 2010 and 2012. I think that is seriously wrong.

Independents are saying they are independent. DUH! They were independent in 2008 also, and they ended up blasting republicans out of the power seats everywhere but the supreme court.

If the Republican party cannot get their act together between now and the elections of this year and 2 years down the road, it won't matter that most of the voters are not democratic. They are not republican either, and Independents, who WILL determine the outcome of the elections, generally disdain 'slash and burn' politics from either paty. Remember that when you are embracing 'tea party' -ish rabidly right wing social and cultural agendas.

I am fiercely Independent. There was a time when I was a republican. There are lots of folks like me. We don't like fiscal irresponsibility from EITHER party, and we don't want to be told how to live our lives or what our religion should be or how to show our patriotism. We also don't like to be around people who 'hate' people who disagree with them politically. It is all so irrational that it becomes embarassing.

Democrats and Republicans alike are so judgmental of the other parties' positions. Each side attributes malintention to the other. Each side portrays the other as morally bankrupt. Independents tend to pick the least of the bad alternatives in each race, and that varies from race to race.

Too much is unknown about the races and the variables now for this or any other poll to be meaningful, and the Gallup people said as much.