The standard November polling caveat still applies here: none of this really matters, except that millions of dollars in time and manpower will be spent as a result of these sort of polls. However, at this particular moment, it would appear that President Obama should cross his fingers that anyone but Mitt Romney gets the Republican nomination, if Public Policy Polling’s numbers can be believed:

Obama trails a hypothetical match up with Mitt Romney, 49-42. That 7 point spread is pretty similar to the 9 points Obama lost to John McCain by in 2008. Romney leads Obama by 11 points with independents and takes an impressive 16% of the Democratic vote.

Obama does have a chance in the state if the GOP nominates someone other than Romney though.

Current GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich can only achieve a tie in the state with Obama at 45% each. Numbers we released last week showed that Gingrich is the first choice of Republicans in the state, but he just can’t match Romney’s appeal to Democrats and independents. Where Romney has an 11 point advantage over Obama with independents, Gingrich leads him by just a single point with that group. And where Romney gets 16% of the Democratic vote, Gingrich can only get 12%. It’s pretty clear who Republicans need to go with if their first priority is defeating Obama.

Gingrich actually isn’t the second strongest Republican against Obama. That honor goes to Ron Paul who leads the President by a single point at 44-43. Most striking in Paul’s numbers is a 55-28 advantage with independents. We really are finding on most polls that Paul is the strongest candidate with those voters out of Obama and the entire Republican field. Paul did better overall against Obama than Gingrich on both our Pennsylvania and Arizona polls last week.

Obama has clear leads against 2 other Republican candidates: he’s up 46-42 on Herman Cain and 47-40 on Rick Perry. Perry’s favorability numbers continues to register at astonishingly low levels: only 17% of voters in the state have a positive opinion of him to 67% with a negative one.

This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2011.

The editor of the Tucson Weekly. I have no idea how I got here.

6 replies on “Poll Says Obama Will Lose, Unless He Doesn’t”

  1. Nice contradiction at the start, or the end..

    “it would appear that President Obama should cross his fingers that anyone but Mitt Romney gets the Republican nomination”

    When it should say Ron Paul instead of Mitt, given “most polls that Paul is the strongest candidate with those voters out of Obama and the entire Republican field”

    We already know special interest is peggin on Mitt or Obama to win the nomination, & fear Ron Paul. Only because Paul is the biggest threat to special interest & isn’t one to be bought out by them, unlike all the others.

  2. More proof that Ron Paul has the best shot at winning in the general election. The GOP NEEDS the independent vote to win. Romney doesn’t have it and neither does Newt. Paul, however, has it by a wide margin.

  3. Ron Paul? Add his name to the following list, Wallace, Anderson, Perot, Nader. He’ll never get a majority of support because there are too many people who know how to read. If you read his positions, they might sound appealing on a “hell yeah” level but won’t work in the real world.
    As for Obama winning AZ. No way in hell. The nuts in this state are quarantined to Pima County.

  5. Obama is behind in the polls!!! Now that is a surprise, with the job he has done Pee Wee Herman could beat him. He better get his cheerleaders rolling (liberal press) I find it simply amazing the liberal press never committed a single act of journalism with Obama. And we the people paid the price with a community organizer. I’m sure our thoroughbred journalist beg,borrow and steal to rake the GOP candidate over the hottest coals they can make. Such fine upstanding people in the press….lol

  6. Obama is going to win this next election I believe. Not trying to start something, guys. I just believe Romney and Gingrich aren’t going to be able to win back enough of the battleground states that Obama took in 2008 to win in 2012. The economy is still slowly improving, and I think the Democrats’ attempts at making the top 1% of earners in this country pay more taxes is going to resonate with enough voters to turn this thing around for him.

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