Topics: Opening Shot 
 
 It’s very, very doubtful that Barack Obama is really running 13 points ahead of Mitt Romney, as a new Bloomberg poll shows. With so many outlets conducting surveys so frequently these days, the occasional funny result is inevitable. Remember when Barack Obama’s approval rating seemed to crash overnight a few months ago? That was what one CBS/New York Times poll found, but it quickly proved to be an aberration, with other outlets putting his approval score where it’s been for much of his presidency, just under 50 percent. 
 
 We may end up looking back at the new Bloomberg numbers the same way. The poll puts Obama at 53 percent and Romney at 40, and gives Obama a 53 percent job approval score. Compare that with what Real Clear Politics’ average of all polls finds: an Obama approval rating of 47.9 percent and an Obama horse-race lead of 2.1 points, 46.5 to 44.4 percent. If other polls in the coming days and weeks show a similar, sudden bulge for Obama, then we can say that Bloomberg was the first to spot a trend. Until and unless that happens, though, its overall findings could just as easily be an outlier. 
 
 That said, the poll is still something of an antidote to the consensus that has sprung up recently in the political world about the supposedly flailing state of Obama’s reelection efforts. Even if Obama isn’t actually ahead by 13 points, there’s still plenty of evidence that he’s faring better than an incumbent president should under the current economic conditions. His approval rating, as political scientists John Sides and Lynn Vavreck have explained, continues to overperform a forecasting model that takes into account 60 years of data on the economy and presidential approval. This, in turn, translates into a better-than-expected showing in head-to-heads with Romney. 
 
 Sides and Vavreck point to a few possible explanations for this phenomenon, including Obama’s personal likability. A bigger factor is probably the uniquely catastrophic conditions that Obama inherited – an economy that was free-falling as he took the oath of office. We aren’t dealing with a recession that started on Obama’s watch or that slowly crept up with no one really noticing. There was a specific, traumatic starting point to the economic slump that the country is now in, and polls continue to show that voters remember who was – and wasn’t – president when it happened. The Bloomberg poll buttresses this point, with 45 percent of respondents saying they’re better off now than they were four years ago, compared to 36 percent who say they’re worse off – even as 62 percent say the country is heading in the wrong direction and only 31 percent say it’s going in the right direction. This is the complicated mix of attitudes that Obama is trying to tap into – frustration and anxiety over where the country is now, but a recognition that the problems are much bigger than one president. In this sense, the comment of one voter polled by Bloomberg has to be encouraging for the White House: “Obama is the lesser of two evils,” says Rosean Smith, 38, an independent voter from Columbus, Ohio, who says Obama faced unrealistic expectations on the economy. “He was basically handed a sick drug baby and expected to make a genius out of it overnight.” Bloomberg’s poll also suggests that Romney’s primary season image problem has returned, with just 39 percent viewing him favorably and 55 percent saying he’s more out of touch than Obama with average Americans. Take this with a grain of salt; if the overall margin in the poll is deceptively favorable for Obama, the rest of the data probably will be too. But again, even if Romney isn’t down 13 points, the poll is still another piece of evidence that Romney’s basic strategy – “I’m not Obama, and that’s good enough” – might be insufficient. 
 
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 Close ||||| Pew poll: Romney erases eight-point deficit, now leads by four among likely voters 
 
 posted at 4:53 pm on October 8, 2012 by Allahpundit 
 
 From a 51/43 lead for O last month to a 49/45 lead for Mitt now. Remember when the media said the debates won’t matter? 
 
 Most exciting poll of the last year? Or most exciting poll of the last four years? 
 
 Romney now ties Obama in being regarded as a strong leader and runs virtually even with the president in willingness to work with leaders of the other party. And by a 47% to 40% margin, voters pick Romney as the candidate who has new ideas… Romney has made progress on the issues. He and Obama now run about even on dealing with health care, Medicare, foreign policy and taxes. Obama led on most of these issues by significant margins in September. Romney also holds a significant 49% to 41% advantage on improving the job situation, despite the fact that most of the interviewing was conducted after the October jobs report, which showed the unemployment rate falling below 8%… By a 37% to 24% margin, more swing voters say Romney would improve the job situation. Swing voters favor Romney on the deficit by a two-to-one (41% vs. 20%) margin. 
 
 We’ve come a long, long way when the avatar of Hopenchange is a distant second on the question of which candidate represents “new ideas.” The polling on jobs is significant too, not only on its own terms but because some of this data was compiled over the weekend, after the news about Friday’s “good” unemployment numbers broke. In fact, among swing voters, 54 percent now say they agree with the statement “Obama doesn’t know how to turn the economy around” versus just 39 percent who disagree. If O can’t put a dent in that this month, he’s in trouble, especially since those numbers partly reflect a “good” jobs report. 
 
 Some of Mitt’s improvement here is mind-boggling. Note the amazing shift in women and voters aged 18-49, in particular: 
 
 Romney’s favorable rating is now at 50 percent, up five points since last month and one point higher than the guy who’s banking on his alleged likability gap to push him over the edge in a close race. In fact, Mitt rates higher than O even though swing voters are far more likely to say that Obama “connects well with ordinary Americans.” Evidently, Romney cut so impressive a figure at the debate that voters like him slightly more than Obama notwithstanding the fabled “who’d you rather have a beer with?” test. 
 
 The one caveat here is the sample. Among registered voters, it’s 34.7R/34D/31.3I; among likelies, it’s probably a few points more Republican than that. Romney’s pollster and Scott Rasmussen have each said they’re expecting a sample of D+3 or so on election day, so this is a rare poll that’s actually a bit redder than it should be — although even that’s a testament to Romney’s debate performance. Party ID tends to shift a bit as each side builds momentum; that’s why the samples after the Democratic convention were a little bluer than usual. What’s happening here, I think, is that some chunk of the audience that watched the debate was sufficiently impressed by Mitt that they’re now identifying as Republican this week. If Ryan does well on Thursday and Romney follows through in his last two debates, maybe that identification will solidify and we’ll get a redder turnout on November 6 than even Team Mitt is expecting. At the very least, perennial Republicans are so energized by Romney’s ass-kicking that they may show up in even greater numbers than expected. Check out the fundraising haul Mitt saw the first 48 hours after the Denver debacle. Good lord. 
 
 Update: With today’s Politico poll showing Obama up one and the race tied in both Rasmussen’s and Gallup’s trackers, O’s lead in the poll of polls is down to just half a point. 
 
 Related Posts: ||||| Charles Dharapak/AP Photo 
 
 Mitt Romney has seized further advantage on economic issues at the core of the 2012 campaign, taking him to 50 percent support among likely voters vs. 47 percent for Barack Obama - Romney's highest vote-preference result of the contest to date. 
 
 The difference between the two candidates is within the margin of sampling error in the latest ABC News/Washington Post daily tracking poll, and their individual support levels have not significantly changed. But the momentum on underlying issues and attributes is Romney's. 
 
 See PDF with full results and charts here. 
 
 Romney's gains are clear especially in results on the economy. This poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that likely voters now pick Romney over Obama in trust to handle the economy by 52-43 percent - the first time either candidate has held a clear lead over the other on this central issue. 
 
 Equally important, Romney has erased Obama's customary advantage on which candidate better understands the economic problems of average Americans. Today, 48 percent pick Obama, 46 percent Romney - essentially a dead heat. Yesterday and today mark the first time in the campaign that Obama hasn't had at least a marginally significant lead on economic empathy. 
 
 Within-group trends on both these economic measures were covered in yesterday's analysis; they reflect movement in Romney's direction almost exclusively among white men, and particularly among less-educated white men. 
 
 SIGNALS - There are other signals of Romney's gains. Expectations are one: Fifty-two percent of likely voters now expect Obama to win the election, down from a peak of 61 percent in late September. Forty percent expect Romney to win - still well fewer than half, but up by 8 percentage points. 
 
 Notably, political independents divide by 42-46 percent on whether they expect Obama or Romney to win; that's shifted dramatically from 61-31 percent in Obama's favor. Whites, likewise, have moved from a 55-38 percent expectation in Obama's favor Sept. 29 to 44-48 percent now. 
 
 Romney is more competitive in another area, as well - international affairs. Even though likely voters by 2-1 picked Obama as the winner of Monday's debate on foreign policy, comfort with Romney on the issue nonetheless has progressed. He runs essentially evenly with Obama in trust to handle international affairs, 48-47 percent, Obama-Romney; they were about this close on Monday, but it was +7 for Obama in mid-October and +8 in early September. 
 
 Obama retains a larger numerical (but not significant) edge on another issue, trust to better advance the interests of the middle class, 50-45 percent. It was similar, 51-43 percent, when last asked in an ABC/Post poll completed Sept. 9. 
 
 In other results, Obama has a 49 percent job approval rating among likely voters - it's been 49 or 50 percent steadily since mid-October - but more "strongly" disapprove than strongly approve, 41 percent vs. 30 percent - an intensity gap that may work against him. 
 
 HORSE RACE - Romney never before has exceeded 49 percent support in ABC/Post polls, making his 50 percent a new high numerically. That includes new highs among a range of groups - including 60 percent support among whites, 56 percent among white women, 58 percent among middle- to upper-middle income adults and 83 percent among conservatives. 
 
 Most strikingly, Romney's advanced to 57 percent support among independents. They're a changeable group, less rooted in partisan predispositions, so their eventual preferences - and their turnout - are uncertain. But they're key to Romney's current fortunes; he's improved among independents by 9 points in the past week. 
 
 The debates are one apparent reason. By a broad 47-10 percent, independents say the debates left them with a better rather than a worse impression of Romney. In the same group, by contrast, just 17 percent say their impression of Obama improved - and 26 percent say it got worse. 
 
 Polarization, meantime, is extreme; Obama is at a new high in support among nonwhites, 80 percent, and continues to pull in broad support from younger adults - six in 10 of those younger than 40. All the same, at 61 percent, his support among unmarried women, a core Democratic group, has reached a new low, chiefly because he's slipped among unmarried white women. 
 
 Still, the gender gap overall remains wide: women for Obama by 54-43 percent; men for Romney by 57-40 percent. 
 
 As noted, the overall 3-point gap between Romney and Obama in this poll is not statistically significant. Given the sample size, it would take a difference of greater than 6 points for the result to be significant at the customary 95 percent confidence level, or more than 5 points at a less-stringent 90 percent confidence level (referred to as a "slight" or marginal difference). 
 
 While the race, then, remains close, Romney's momentum has come in time for most voters: Thirty-seven percent of likely voters say they've voted early or plan to, but that includes far fewer, 8 percent, who already have done so. It's a number that's growing daily, putting each campaign's get-out-the-vote efforts to the critical test. 
 
 METHODOLOGY - This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 21-24, 2012, among a random national sample of 1,386 likely voters, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3 points, including design effect. (Questions 12f, 12h and 21 were asked Oct. 23-24 among 707 likely voters; those results have a 4.5-point error margin.) The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York, N.Y. 
 
 Partisan divisions in this survey, Democrats-Republicans-independents, are 34-30-31 percent among likely voters. Partisan divisions in the 2008 exit poll were 39-32-29 percent.
– The political world is buzzing today over a new Bloomberg poll that shows Barack Obama clobbering Mitt Romney by a whopping 53% to 40% margin. This comes despite voters widely disapproving of Obama's handling of the economy—only 43% approve, while 53% disapprove. So why is Obama winning? Because voters just plain don't like Romney. Only 39% view him favorably, and 55% say he is more "out of touch," with voters. A plurality also say they're better off now than four years ago. Forty-five percent say they're better off, to only 36% who say they're worse off. "I'm just tired of the doom and gloom," says one independent voter. The pollsters point out, however, that the finding runs counter to recent economic indicators. Indeed, the whole poll is such an outlier that it's best taken with "a big grain of salt," Steve Kornacki of Salon warns. Obama probably isn't actually up by 13 points, writes Kornacki, but the poll is evidence that he's faring better than an incumbent in this economy normally would. Click for his full column.