by Lone Shark
There’s very little positive that the Obama campaign can take away from the results of latest Quinnipiac poll of the presidential race here in Florida. Earlier this month, the same pollster found Romney essentially tied with Obama (44%-43%), but what a difference a few weeks makes- the pollster’s latest canvassing of of the state has Romney now up 6 points (47%-41%), placing him outside the 2.4% margin of error in a phone survey of 1,722 registered voters.The internals of the Quinnipiac look just as bad for Obama at this juncture as well. Obama has only a very slight lead over Romney with women (45%-44%) and Hispanics (44%-42%), two key demographics that Obama must do significantly better with in order to hold the state. The poll also found that the selection of Marco Rubio as VEEP would have “little impact” on the race, even as Romney’s margin increased two points to a 49%-41% lead.
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Of course, the major intervening event in between the these two Quinnipiac polls was Obama’s Gay Marriage “evolution”, which seems to have had approximately the same negative impact in Florida as it did in North Carolina for Obama in polls taken subsequent to his reversal on the issue. But Florida has also been peppered with the Obama campaign’s baseless negative ads that have featured him taking shots at oil companies and private equity firms, and these don’t appear to have helped as well.
Given that Republicans candidates have fared better in polls that survey likely voters rather rather than registered voters over the past two years, these numbers have to be very encouraging for Romney- it will be interesting to see if the forthcoming surveys of likely voters find an even larger Romney lead which could prompt analysts to move Florida out of the “toss-up” category and into the “leans Republican” column.