Poll #1 from CNN: The race is tied among likely voters at 48 percent apiece, and Republicans have a six-percentage-point enthusiasm edge. Mitt Romney's favorability is now +10, at 53/43. For the first time, Romney is viewed more favorably than President Obama, who's at 51/48. Joe Biden's under-water on favorability, while Paul Ryan is +11. Romney has a six-point lead on the economy, is virtually tied on foreign policy and Medicare, and has overtaken Obama on leadership qualities. He has also seized the lead on the question of which candidate has an "optimistic vision" for the country's future. Romney leads Obama by ten full points among independents. Despite all of this information, a plurality says the RNC made them less likely to vote for the Republican ticket (even as their head-to-head and favorability polling increased). What? Question: If Romney's beating Obama in favorability for the first time and has a double-digit lead with indies, how is the overall race tied? The poll doesn't include a partisan breakdown, nor any indication of how things were weighted. Plus, it has a very small sample size, leading to some wacky, contradictory data. I'd say Team Romney should be pleased with the overall results and trends without buying into the specifics too heavily.
Poll #2 from ABC News:
Barack Obama approaches his nomination for a second term with the lowest pre-convention personal popularity of an incumbent president in ABC News/Washington Post polls since the 1980s. He’s also at his lowest of the year among registered voters, with trouble among women. Just 47 percent of registered voters in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll see Obama favorably overall, down 7 percentage points from his recent peak in April, while 49 percent rate him unfavorably. He’s numerically underwater in this group for the first time since February. The decline has occurred entirely among women registered voters – from 57-39 percent favorable-unfavorable in April to a numerically negative 46-50 percent now.
That’s Obama’s lowest score among women voters – a focus of recent political positioning – in ABC/Post polls since he took office. Unusually, his rating among men, 50-47 percent favorable-unfavorable, is numerically better than it is among women, albeit not by a significant margin. The result is not the only sign of the work ahead for Obama among women. In a separate ABC/Post poll last week, he led Romney among women registered voters in vote preference by just 6 points, 49-43 percent. In 2008, Obama won women by 13 points, 56-43 percent. As if misery loves company, Mitt Romney’s favorability rating remains numerically lower even than Obama’s in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. Nonetheless Romney does show a faint convention bounce, a 5-point gain in favorability among all adults vs. a week ago.
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Between these two polls, it's clear that Obama has taken a significant and real favorability hit -- but like Allahpundit, I'm a bit dubious of the severity of these numbers. Finally, poll #3, from Reuters: Mitt Romney leads Obama by a point nationally, as voters are seriously souring on the economy in a big way (economic right track/wrong track at 17/75). The Reuters headline? "Obama Gets High Marks on Personal Attributes." In. The. Tank.
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