A new poll from Gallup that surveyed 951 registered voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin show President Obama with a small advantage, 47 – 45, over former Massachusetts Gov. and likely Republcian nominee Mitt Romney. Gallup pointed to an enthusiasm gap for Romney in swing states:
While Obama edges out Romney by two points in the overall preferences of swing-state registered voters, he has a four-point advantage with respect to solid supporters: 36% of swing-state voters say they are certain they will vote for Obama in November, while 32% are certain they will vote for Romney. Each candidate’s remaining supporters — the 11% who favor Obama and the 13% favoring Romney — say there is a chance they could change their mind between now and the election. An additional 7% of voters are undecided, meaning a total of 31% of swing-state voters are not firmly committed at this time.
Obama’s swing-state prospects also look a bit brighter than Romney’s on the basis of voter enthusiasm. More than half of Obama’s supporters, 55%, are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting in this year’s presidential election, up from 49% saying this in March. By contrast, 46% of Romney’s supporters are extremely or very enthusiastic, unchanged from 47% in March. Today’s figures reflect a reversal from January, when 55% of Romney voters were extremely or very enthusiastic, compared with 50% of Obama voters.
Republicans have generally held an advantage over Democrats on enthusiasm in 2012, but that start to change when the presidential primary process began. A number of polls showed that GOPers weren’t statisfied with their choices this cycle, which ate into their edge on the metric.
