(03/28/12) -

Obama Keeps Upper Hand Against All Prospective Opponents in U.S.

Romney is slightly ahead of Santorum when paired against the president, while the gap grows in contests against Paul and Gingrich.

At least half of decided American voters are ready to back the current head of state in this year’s United States presidential election against four possible rivals, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,005 American adults, 51 per cent of decided voters would support Democrat Barack Obama in the 2012 election, while 45 per cent would cast a ballot for Republican Mitt Romney.

In an election pitting Obama against Rick Santorum, the incumbent president holds a seven-point lead (50% to 43%). While Santorum had emerged as the toughest rival for the current president last month, he is now seven-points behind.

Obama extended his advantage in match-ups against Ron Paul (52% to 38%) and Newt Gingrich (58% to 32%).

Analysis

This month, Mitt Romney is once again the best hope for the Republican Party to win the 2012 presidential election. However, while the former Massachusetts Governor held a two-point edge over Obama in January, now he finds himself six points behind and only barely ahead among decided voters over the age of 55. More importantly, half of Independents (50%) are ready to support Obama, while just one third (33%) would cast a ballot for Romney.

Santorum has dropped three points since February, but the former Pennsylvania Senator is doing better than Romney with older voters and women. Paul and Gingrich are not having much success connecting with specific demographics. The Texas Congressman gets his best numbers with men (41%) and respondents aged 18-to-34 (43%), but this is not enough to mount a challenge to Obama. The situation is more calamitous for the former House Speaker, with both women and younger Americans preferring Obama by a 2-to-1 margin.

Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)

CONTACT:

Mario Canseco, Vice President, Angus Reid Public Opinion
+877 730 3570
mario.canseco@angus-reid.com

Methodology: From March 23 to March 24, 2012, Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey among 1,005 randomly selected American adults who are Springboard America panelists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.1%. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure a sample representative of the entire adult population of the United States. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.