US-2012 President: 48% Obama (D), 48% Romney (R)(Gallup 1/27-28)

Gallup
1/27-28/12; 907 registered voters, 4% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
Gallup release

National

2012 President
48% Obama (D), 48% Romney (R) (chart)
53% Obama (D), 41% Gingrich (R) (chart)
49% Obama (D), 46% Paul (R)
51% Obama (D), 43% Santorum (R)

Also on HuffPost:

Comments

[A New Jersey Farmer]

04:46 PM on 01/31/2012

The tracking polls have moved in Obama's direction over the past few days. Friday's employment figures will be key.

[WhatHaveRepublicansDone]

06:16 PM on 01/30/2012

Wow the righties on here are like Pavlov's dogs, salivating at any piece of news they can spin to their general likeness. This seems to be an outlier if you look at the Obama/Romney chart on this site. They were all awfully quite last week when the WSJ poll had Obama up 6. Intrade has Obama with a 12+ percentage advantage, so until Romney is within single digits of Obama, I would say Romney is not in a very good position to win the general election. If Newt takes his fight all the way to Tampa, their is a good chance that Romney never even gets close to the positive side on favorably ratings.

[StatsNo1fan]

03:53 PM on 01/30/2012

As far as posters predicting landslides here, I've said, many times, that B0 was looking at a big loss, when his approval was in the low forties. I pretty much always added "based on current sentiment".

Based on today's sentiment, it looks like a pretty close election, IMO. Though, if you look at B0's approval chart for his entire term so far, there are swings that appear to form a seasonal pattern, thought the overall trend is down. Not really sure if there is truly a correlation to the calendar, but FWIW, he was above water by 7-8 points on the RCP chart this time last year, and about breakeven today.

[stillow1]

05:05 PM on 01/30/2012

Well if ya want a fancy prediction....I think Romney has a great shot at getting to 50% tomorrow.

[StatsNo1fan]

05:44 PM on 01/30/2012

That is fancy..

[AaronTX]

10:29 AM on 01/31/2012

Last year it had to do with the Giffords shooting, which the consensus was that the President handled that pretty well. Personally, I think that was his best speech of the first term, and will probably remain.

[Rightbrainedleftwinged]

03:11 PM on 01/30/2012

Yes, I am not sure if this poll shows a GOP advantage due to the pollster's bias; it is just a more conservative formula Gallup uses in elections.

I think as the despotic governors tend to push their hate filled agendas in many swing states, it is not going to help the GOP one bit. Unless they let up, a little when ROmney is campaigning in their state, and simply cooperate more. It would not be for the people of their state they would do this for, it would for Romney to win.

I would expect the policies of Rick Scott, Nicky Halley, Scott Walker, Jan Brewer and others to get worse with a Romney presidency. When you have a Attorney general like Ashcroft or Gonzales instead of Eric Holder, no more is union busting unjust, no more is rounding up humans and placing them in 140 degree tents unjust, no more is allowing people waiting for transplants to die, because of budget concerns, and the twisted policies go on and on. Chris Christie recently said that NJ voters would reject same sex marriage, like the south would have rejected civil rights legislation. I actually thought Christie was a lot of negative things, but I didn't think he was a bigot; I guessed wrong.

[irt2ltee]

02:37 AM on 01/31/2012

crap

[Field Marshall]

03:09 PM on 01/30/2012

Are they going to release the individual state-by-state polling tomorrow?

[StatsNo1fan]

03:56 PM on 01/30/2012

I doubt it, since the some of the individual state samples are so tiny. You can see some breakdown in the release link above. But the swing state poll is valuable taken as a whole.

[dpearl]

02:01 PM on 01/30/2012

February 2004. All adults approval rate on Gallup right after State of the Union Speech for President George Bush = 49%
February 2012. All adults approval rate on Gallup right after State of the Union speech for President Barrack Obama = 46%
February 2004. All adults % saying “more enthusiastic” in Gallup poll: 59% for Democrats; 53% for Republicans (D+6)
February 2012. All adults % saying “extremely enthusiastic or very enthusiastic” in Gallup poll: 61% for Republicans; 58% for Democrats (R+3)
December 2011 (with comparable question as 2004). All adults % saying “more enthusiastic” in Gallup poll: 49% for Republicans; 54% for Democrats (R+5)
February 2004. Likely voters trial heat on Gallup: 53% supporting Senator Kerry; 46% supporting President Bush.
February 2012. Registered voters trial heat on Gallup: 48% supporting former Governor Romney; 48% supporting President Obama.

At this point in time the elections of 2004 and 2012 are basically mirror images with respect to the approval, enthusiasm, and trial heat issues. The idea of some huge advantage for Mr. Romney is not based in the data.

My personal feeling is a slight edge to the incumbent based on current data - but things are way too volatile for the kinds of statements we see from many commentators.

[ashenthorn]

02:37 PM on 01/30/2012

I also see 2012 as most reminiscent of 2004, with the presidency likely decided in Florida and Ohio with the rest of the country pretty much irrelevant (which is pretty depressing imo). There is quite a shadow battle going on in Florida right now, as the Obama forces try to piggy back on Gingrich's attacks to drive down Romney's favorability with Florida independents, as Romney stakes out positions to appeal to republican primary voters.

[Rightbrainedleftwinged]

03:13 PM on 01/30/2012

No, I disagree. I'd have to ad Colorado and Nevada to the Mix. Both states have changed a lot since 2004 demographically. CO has lots more latino residents and a lot more people who moved from other metro areas in CA and the northeast. I'd have to ad NC and VA to the mix too. Those states have changed demographically since 2004.

[Bukama]

05:29 PM on 01/30/2012

That seems likely to me, though I think the battle in FL will be really hard for Obama to win. He touched the new third rail of politics - health care, and will pay the price. But he still probably wins without Florida if he wins Ohio.

I also think that a strong win by Romney tomorrow in FL will give him at least a temporary boost in national head-to-head polls. But the effect will be more long lived in Florida, where the people will consider that they Romney the nomination, so he'll sort of be "their" candidate, the way Newt would have been SC's candidate.

[stillow1]

02:42 PM on 01/30/2012

Who is claiming there is a huge advantage for Romney? I haven't seen that here or anywhere except maybe the Romney campaign??

the numbers you listed are not really mirror images....in 2004 you have enthuisasm at D+6, in 2012 its R+3.....that is a substancial difference.

In your trial heat #'s you are comapring a 2004 LV sample to a 2012 RV sample...and in 2004 you have Kerry +7 as a result....probably because your same numbers gave Dems an enthusiasm edge at the time of D+6....and then in your 2012 trial heat where you are using RV's its tied 48/48....you are not using LV as the poll in 2004 did....by not using LV you are not going to accuratley get the enthusiasm edge for the GOP of R+3 reflected very well.

So it seems you are comapring a lot of different things here, but counting them as being very similar.....IMO based o nthe #'s you listed one would have to give Romney the slight edge because they are tied among your RV poll right now which won't pickup on the R+3 energy gap....

[StatsNo1fan]

03:16 PM on 01/30/2012

I think it's cute how some of these pinko_lib pollsters poll LV's in the cycles when Dems hold the enthusiasm edge, but RV's in cycles when GOP has the edge.

[dpearl]

03:18 PM on 01/30/2012

Stillow,

By "mirror image" I am saying that if you replace the "D's" of 2004 with the "R's" of 2012 then things look pretty much the same. For example, during the time period that Howard Dean and John Edwards were still competitive and the primaries were going full steam, the Democrats had a slight enthusiasm advantage over the Republicans whose incumbent President was not going through a primary challenge. In 2012 the Republican advantage in enthusiasm would be expected to be similar to the Democrat advantage back in 2004 - and it is. If anything Senator Kerry was in even more of a favorable position than Governor Romney is today. Similarly with the trial heat data where Senator Kerry's lead was a tiny bit greater than Governor Romney has now (again comparable - even when you adjust for RV vs LV).

Bottom line - your and StatsNo1fan's posts are both missing the mirror image point. Senator Kerry was in just as enviable a position and perhaps more so than Mr. Romney is today and he lost in a close election. Overall a slight edge to the incumbent in this type of situation.

[alanrsnipes]

01:33 PM on 01/30/2012

The obvious flaw in this poll is that they do not braek down the results by state. At uselectionatlas.org, they have Obama ahead in states with 259 electoral votes and the Republican with 106, with the rest undecided. That is where the race is today at this point.

[Joe Pithier]

01:56 PM on 01/30/2012

But...Gallup will make more money if people think the race, at present, is more competitive!

[stillow1]

02:00 PM on 01/30/2012

That site calls TX and SC tossups? hahahaha....and its not even giving WY, ND, ID or OK to the GOP?

You might want to start using a credible map man....here is one ofr you.

http://www.270towin.com/

[alanrsnipes]

04:04 PM on 01/30/2012

They call them tossups on the basis of polling so far. To give them to one side, a side has to win 3 polls consecutively. Also, there has not been any or little polling in some states. You can click on a state to see the polling for that state. This is what Gallup and USA Today failed to do, give us a breakdown state by state, which is after all how the election will be won or lost.

[StatsNo1fan]

11:20 AM on 01/30/2012

Gallup also polled Mitt/B0 and Newt/B0 in 12 swing states which B0 won in 08. They did not even include Indiana.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152240/Romney-Ties-Obama-Swing-States-Gingrich-Trails.aspx

Considering Mitt would only need to win about 5-6 of those, where he is strongest, pretty bad news for B0 here.

[stillow1]

11:34 AM on 01/30/2012

I saw that. I agree with their list of the 12 swing states. Most don't think IN will be in play again...

Taking out those 12 swing states where the election is certain to be decided, the EV total right now is Obama 196, romney 191.

[StatsNo1fan]

11:43 AM on 01/30/2012

Many Dems are pretty much ready to concede NH as well, if Mitt is the nominee. If GOP flips IN and NH, they need only FL, NC, VA and OH to get to 270 even.

[teron678]

12:26 PM on 01/30/2012

Gallup has no credibility when it comes to state-wide polls... I would really like to see the cross-tabs of each of these individual states ... instead of Gallup grouping them all into one group.

Out of all these12 swing states Mitt might win 2 as the most.

[Rightbrainedleftwinged]

10:20 AM on 01/30/2012

This poll is ridiculous. I mean Ron Paul trailing Obama by 3? I've seen no other polls recently that were quite like this.

[StatsNo1fan]

11:01 AM on 01/30/2012

Actually, this poll is about average for the Paul/B0 race..

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_paul_vs_obama-1750.html#polls

[-iVote-]

02:13 PM on 01/30/2012

CNN and CBS have frequently shown similar numbers in a Paul/Obama match-up. He's far more electable than Gingrich and Santorum, second only to Romney.

[-iVote-]

10:18 AM on 01/30/2012

Romney and Paul the only ones within MOE of the president. Gingrich and Santorum need a reality check.

[stillow1]

10:55 AM on 01/30/2012

Romney is almost "always" within the MoE with Obama....either slightly behind, tied or slightly ahead......Paul.................who knows, maybe the younglings propping up his numbers a bit lately.

[dpearl]

11:07 AM on 01/30/2012

Yes - Representative Paul is usually second to former Governor Romney in terms of how close his match-ups with the President fall (though he has actually never led in a public poll to date).