Washington Post headlines "Poll: Obama, Romney in dead heat on economy."
After months of aggressive campaigning on jobs and the economy, President Obama and Mitt Romney, his likely Republican challenger, are locked in a dead heat over who could fix the problem foremost on voters’ minds, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.The Wapo/ABC News poll sample was 32 percent Democrats, 22 percent Republicans, and 38 percent Independents.
The parity on economic issues foreshadows what probably will continue to be a tough and negative campaign. Overall, voters would be split 49 percent for Obama and 46 percent for Romney if the November election were held now. On handling the economy, they are tied at 47 percent.
Hot Air consistently watches polling samples and notices that the number of Republicans sampled in this last poll is at the lowest levels this year.
In other words, the shiny-object distraction strategy from Team Obama hasn’t worked out as planned. Neither has the sample strategy from the WaPo/ABC pollster. Today’s D/R/I is 32/22/38, which means this model would only be predictive for a turnout model where only 22% of voters are Republican. Just to remind readers, the 2008 turnout split from exit polls showed a 39/32/29 split, and that was considered a nadir for Republican turnout. In the 2010 midterms, the split was 35/35/30.
Take a close look at the Republican representation in WaPo/ABC polls this year. Starting in January, that has been 25%, 23%, 27%, 23%, and now 22%. The pollster seems incapable of finding a representative number of Republicans for this poll series. Perhaps that should give the two news organizations involved a hint about finding a new pollster.
Campaign 2012 points out what may be the death knell to the Obama campaign for reelection:
Americans are nearly twice as likely to say they've gotten financially worse off as better off since Obama became president...
Obama's three point lead is within the margin of error and that is while using 10 percent more Democrats in their sample than Republicans.
52 percent of those registered voters still find the economy to be the most important issue, showing that all the attempts to distract voters with other issues, isn't working.
[Update] Breitbart headline "WaPo/ABC Poll Assumes Lowest GOP Turnout in Decades to Boost Obama."
