President Obama leads Thursday’s edition of the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll by a tiny margin — 7 hundreths of a percent. Obama gets 48.56 percent of voters to Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s 48.49 percent, a small move from yesterday’s tie in the ABC/WaPo tracker between the two candidates at 49 percent. From ABC News pollster Gary Langer’s analysis:
While there’s been no apparent effect on vote preferences, Obama continues to get broadly positive grades for his response to the storm. Seventy-nine percent rate his handling of the situation positively, including 69 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of conservatives, as well as more than eight in 10 in other political and ideological groups.
As yesterday, Romney’s ratings are far more divided, likely reflecting partisan predispositions given his lack of an official role in the storm response. His handling of the situation is rated positively by 49 percent overall, ranging from 78 percent of Republicans to 47 percent of independents and 24 percent of Democrats. He’s rated negatively by 24 percent, chiefly Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.
The ABC/WaPo tracking poll used 1,293 live telephone interviews with likely voters, conducted Oct. 28-31. It has a sampling error of 3 percent.
