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 Barack Obama has opened a significant lead over Mitt Romney in a Bloomberg National Poll that reflects the presumed Republican nominee’s weaknesses more than the president’s strengths. Obama leads Romney 53 percent to 40 percent among likely voters, even as the public gives him low marks on handling the economy and the deficit, and six in 10 say the nation is headed down the wrong track, according to the poll conducted June 15- 18. Even with the run of bad reports, Americans say they prefer Obama’s economic vision to that of his presumptive Republican rival, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, by a margin of 49 percent to 33 percent. “Even as the market signals continuing softness in the economy, gloom at the personal level seems to have bottomed out,” says J. Ann Selzer, who directs the Bloomberg poll. 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. The poll of 1,002 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the full sample. Its findings are at odds with other recent national surveys that have found the two candidates tied or shown a slight advantage for Obama or Romney. 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. Forty-five percent of those surveyed in a Bloomberg National Poll say they are better off than at the beginning of 2009 compared with 36 percent who say they are worse off. Yet the 45 percent to 28 percent margin is narrower than a year ago, when 55 percent expected the next generation’s living standards to drop compared with only 23 percent who retained their faith in the American Dream. 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. 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.” 
 
 Smith, a graduate student and mother of six who says she has applied for 80 jobs in the last eight months and landed none, says while Obama is “way in over his head” on the economy, she doesn’t trust Romney to do better. Angleton, an independent, says he is “scared” of what the future holds if Obama stays in office, though not confident that things will get better if Romney takes the White House. The public also has flip-flopped on its view of the appropriate government role in the economy since the March 2011 Bloomberg poll. They’re not getting better quickly, but they’re getting better.” 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: David J. Lynch in Washington at dlynch27@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at jcummings21@bloomberg.net
– 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.