Earning high marks from voters for his new immigration policy, President Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida in a new poll from Quinnipiac University released Wednesday.
The president’s largest lead is in Ohio, where he tops Romney, 47 percent to 38 percent. Obama is strengthened in the Buckeye State by advantages over Romney among both women and independent voters. Women widely prefer Obama over the presumptive Republican nominee, 50 percent to 35 percent, and the president holds a solid lead with independents, 45 percent to 36 percent. Ohio voters also say that Obama would do a better job than Romney on the economy by a 5-point margin, 47 percent to 42 percent.
In Pennsylvania — where Democrats have carried the last five presidential elections — Obama leads Romney, 45 percent to 39 percent. Much like in Ohio, the president is bolstered in Pennsylvania by an edge with women voters, 48 percent to 36 percent. But Pennsylvania voters are evenly split on the question of who would do a better job on the economy.
Obama’s smallest lead in the poll is in Florida, where he edges Romney, 45 percent to 41 percent. But Latino voters in the Sunshine State overwhelmingly back the president, 56 percent to 32 percent. That amounts to a considerable bump for Obama among the burgeoning voting bloc since Quinnipiac’s June 21 poll of Florida, which showed the president leading Romney by 10-points among Latino voters in the state. Obama’s gains with Florida Latinos suggest that his directive to halt the deportation of some undocumented immigrants is bearing political fruit.
In fact, majorities in each of the three states surveyed by Quinnipiac support Obama’s new immigration policy, which he unveiled earlier this month. The president also has the upper hand over Romney in all three states on the question of which candidate would do a better job on immigration.
Wednesday’s Quinnipiac survey comes on the heels of a Tuesday poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, which showed Obama leading Romney by 8-points in a combined sample of voters in 12 swing states — including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.
The PollTracker Average partially mirrors the results of the Quinnipiac poll, with Obama currently enjoying some breathing room in Ohio and Pennsylvania but only narrowly leading Romney in Florida.
Quinnipiac conducted its poll June 19-25 using live telephone interviews with registered voters in all three states. The results from each state have a sampling error of 2.8 percent.
