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Mitt Romney Double Digits Behind Barack Obama for 2012

11/25/2009, by Proloy Bhatta

HIGHLIGHTS

• Among all voters: Obama 47, Romney 37.
• Among likely voters: Obama 45, Romney 38.
• Poll of Polls Obama Approval Rating: Approve 48%, Disapprove 46%.

According to Rasmussen Reports back in July, Obama and Romney were in a dead heat - nodded up at 45%. We wrote an article about this entitled "Mitt Romney Can Beat Barack Obama in 2012". We outlined the support each of these candidates had along demographics lines so it is a good article to check out.

But today's poll is one by Democracy Corps -- a poll that shows Obama is ahead of Romney among all voters and likely voters by double digits and seven points respectively. This poll included two third party candidates, Ralph Nader and Lou Dobbs.

If Romney could be as competitive as Rasmussen suggests then some of his support may have bleeded out to these candidates. But that would hardly dent his deficit against Obama because some of Obama's support would have bleeded out as well.

Even if two-thirds of the third party supporters were to go to Romney and one-thirds to Obama, he would only be able to gain three points -- still behind seven points.

Pollsters do not always count every vote equally, especially not in an election poll. They have to weight some responses and completely eliminate others that may be unlikely to vote.

Among "likely voters", Romney was only behind by 7%.

Because the least likely of voters that they "removed" would have gone better than 2-to-1 for Obama versus Romney:

Again this highlights the problem the Democrats have. Their voters are just not as likely to vote as Republicans. For example, if the exact voters that voted in the 2009 Virginia governor race voted in 2008 -- nobody else -- McCain would have won that state. (LINK)

Back to the Democracy Corps poll, Obama's approval rating according to these very same voters was 50% -- Obama's poll of polls "approve margin" is down to just two points.

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