According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll President Obama has gained a net 11 points in favorability over the past month while Gingrich and Romney have lost 9 and 23 points respectively.
President Obama’s favorability rating has gone from a net negative one point (48%-49%), in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll to a net positive ten points (53%-43%). Two groups are powering the president’s positive swing. Obama has seen his favorability rating improve by six points with Independents, and unfavorable rating decline by five points. By a margin of 51%-45%, Independents now have a favorable view of the president. Obama has seen his favorability rating jump a net 21 points with moderates from 54%-42% to 66%-31%.
While Obama is benefiting from an improved economy and a focus on the middle class and jobs, the favorability of his top two Republican challengers is in free fall. The already nationally unpopular Newt Gingrich’s favorable rating has fallen to 29%. More than half of the country (51%) now holds an unfavorable view of Gingrich.
Newt Gingrich’s lack of appeal to anyone, but the Republican base is not surprising. The real shock is that Mitt Romney has become almost as unelectable as Gingrich. In two weeks, Mitt Romney has gone from a net five point positive approval rating (39%-34%) to a net eighteen point negative approval rating (31%-49%). Romney has lost the approval of Independents (23%-51% favorable/unfavorable) and moderates (27%-52% favorable/unfavorable). Mitt Romney’s unfavorable rating with Republicans has nearly doubled from 18% to 32%.
Romney has lost a net thirty five points of favorability with Independents since January 8, which points to the possibility that there is more to his troubles than tax returns. My guess is that the portrait of Romney as a disconnected wealthy corporate raider which has been painted by both the Gingrich and Obama campaigns, along with some help from the candidate himself, is starting to stick.
Unlike President Obama, Mitt Romney doesn’t have a base of support that is motivated and enthusiastic about voting for him. Romney lacks the personality and communication skills to define himself, so he has allowed his opponents both current and potential future to define him.
As Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich render each other unelectable, support for Obama continues to grow.
While this is just one poll nine plus months before the general election, President Obama has been on the rise for months now. There is plenty of time for Romney or Gingrich to become a credible challenger to Obama, but the Republican Party’s worst nightmare is unfolding before their eyes. President Obama is on the sidelines getting stronger while the two frontrunners for the GOP nomination are bludgeoning each other into unelectability.
Things can change quickly in presidential elections, but Barack Obama is getting himself into position to win a second term.
