Polling Report [5.18.12]
And here we have more national polls that together tell us nothing because each of them tells us a different story. Each of these statements is true, acorrding to one poll or the other: Obama is surging, Romney is surging, and things have remained unchanged in this close election.
We have no state polls today, just national ones.
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Gallup Tracking): Obama 45, Romney 45
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney 46, Obama 45
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (TIPP for Investor’s Business Daily and the Christian Science Monitor): Obama 43, Romney 40
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Zogby Analytics for the Washington Times): Romney 44, Obama 43; Obama 44, Romney 43, Gary Johnson (L) 2
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT (Mason-Dixon): Obama 47, Romney 44
And averaging all five polls (simple equal weighting — not optimal, but easiest) and rounding to nearest integer
Obama 45, Romney 44
As close as that looks, the good news is that polling in battleground states is more favorable for Obama. Does anyone really care if Romney wins Utah by 90 points?
RCP has Obama up by 1.7%
Obama is currently leading in polls of most the key battleground states (CO,FL,OH,VA,IA,WI,NH, and NC). The only battleground states where Romney is ahead are AZ and MO.
If Obama can win all the states where he’s leading today, he wins with a commanding 347 votes. Romney needs to wrest 78 votes, and that will be difficult.
But perhaps the best news for Obama is that his job approval numbers are up and the economy is apparently doing better.