Yes it’s early, and it’s Connecticut. It’s a strongly Democratic state, and it’s highly unlikely that anyone else but President Barack Obama will win it in the 2012 election.
But former Mass Gov. Mitt Romney within two points?
A new poll from Public Policy Polling (D) shows Obama with a nearly split approval rating in the very blue state, with 48 of CT voters approving of his job performance and 49 against. The President’s struggles with his job approval numbers have been well documented, and Dean Debnam, President of PPP, got right to it in the release: “Connecticut probably won’t be a swing state at the end of the day,” he said. “But the fact that it’s even close there at this point is symbolic of his broader issues.”
The key here is that Romney isn’t totally loved either: his favorability is split 42 – 41, yet that’s enough to get him within two percent of the President. As of right now, 47 percent of CT voters in the poll say they’ll vote to re-elect Obama, while 45 percent would go for Romney. The next closest GOP contender to the President is Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is solidly beaten in the poll 53 – 41.
The electoral problem for Obama here is independent voters in CT, which are much more significant than the relatively small number of registered Republicans in the state. Romney wins indies with 48 percent versus Obama’s 36, while also taking 14 percent of Democrats. The survey also shows that Obama wins 79 percent of his own party, but Romney wins 87 percent of Republicans.
It’s more evidence for Republicans that it looks like Romney is their best candidate if they want to complete in blue and purple states. Romney had a good week of polling news, besting Obama in a Quinnipiac poll of Florida outside the margin of error, a state the President won in 2008. As Debnam points out, Connecticut is unlikely to be a real race in 2012, but it tells both sides something about their relative positions at the moment: there are currently wayward Democrats and Dem-leaning independents out there, and Republicans probably have a stronger candidate in Romney, if the primary voters can bring themselves to nominate him.
The PPP poll used 592 automated telephone interviews of registered voters conducted from September 22nd to the 25th. It has a sampling error of four percent.
