Public Policy Polling (D) released new numbers on Tuesday showing President Barack Obama up on former Mass Gov. Mitt Romney by three points. The two men were tied last month at 45 percent in PPP’s polling in the most competitive pairing between the President and any of his possible GOP foes: the rest of the field is down by between 6 and 11 percent.
The President’s approval stands at only 45 percent against 51 percent disapproval, but the Republican candidates continue to have problems on the favorability side. The most liked candidate is new GOP flame Newt Gingrich at 39 percent favorable versus 50 percent unfavorable, a surprising jump of nine points on the positive side from a 30 – 56 split in last month’s PPP national poll. Romney is second in the favorability column with a 36 – 50 split, and the other candidates are further down.
Probably the most incredible number in the poll is Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s favorability rating, down to 18 percent, versus 67 percent unfavorable. The only recent comparable candidate with an unfavorable rating that high was former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s in PPP’s August poll, when she hit 62 percent.
Businessman Herman Cain’s position in the poll, after sustaining an onslaught over sex allegations levied against him, actually didn’t change all that much. Cain was down six to Obama in October when he was on top of the GOP race, and is down eight in the new PPP numbers. The slight movement illustrates that with all the shifting on the Republican side, there still only remains one candidate that has done consistently well against President Obama, which is Romney.
Yet, Romney himself is slipping against the President in this month’s survey. “This is one of Barack Obama’s better performances in our polling in recent months,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling in a release. “It’s only the second time since June we’ve found him with a lead over Mitt Romney.” And PPP’s own analysis suggested that the electability argument may not just include Romney anymore.
Most notable is that he leads Mitt Romney 46-43. This only the second time in the last 5 months that PPP has found Obama ahead of his top rival. Romney’s net favorability has dropped 8 points in the last month from -6 (37/43) to -14 (36/50). Romney is pretty steady with Republicans, but his numbers have gone down with both independents (from 48/34 to 41/40) and with Democrats (from 19/59 to 18/68).
The electability gap between Romney and the rest of the Republican field is becoming a little bit narrower. Newt Gingrich is surging for the general election as well as the primary and has turned what was an 11 point deficit against Obama last month into only a 6 point one now at 49-43. Gingrich’s improvement has come across the board- he’s doing 7 points better with independents, 4 points better with Democrats, and 4 points better with Republicans.
The TPM Poll Average of the national matchup between Obama and Romney shows the President with a slight 1.2 percent lead.
The PPP poll used 800 automated interviews with registered voters nationally conducted from Novmber 10th to the 13th. The poll has a sampling error of 3.5 percent.
