President Obama and Mitt Romney are in a dead heat in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, partially because Obama’s wide advantage with women last month has evaporated:
One of those times came last month, when Obama held a seven-point advantage. That lead was fueled in part by a 19-point advantage among women, the largest across the set of polls. In the new survey, 51 percent of female voters support Obama and 44 percent Romney, almost precisely the average divide since April 2011.
The Democrats’ war on women strategy may have given Obama a temporary boost with women, but it didn’t last. As soon as the issue dropped out of the news cycle, the divide bounced back to where it was before, which was what some conservatives predicted would happen.
And that’s not the only troubling news for the Obama campaign. Ed Morrissey notices that the partisan breakdown in the poll assumes that only 22 percent of voters are Republican – an extremely low prediction:
In other words, the shiny-object distraction strategy from Team Obama hasn’t worked out as planned. Neither has the sample strategy from the WaPo/ABC pollster. Today’s D/R/I is 32/22/38, which means this model would only be predictive for a turnout model where only 22 percent of voters are Republican. Just to remind readers, the 2008 turnout split from exit polls showed a 39/32/29 split, and that was considered a nadir for Republican turnout. In the 2010 midterms, the split was 35/35/30.
If Romney and Obama are neck-and-neck in a poll like this, then the president has more to worry about than it initially seems.
Obama is finished if his poll numbers remain this low with women. Romney is still something of a mystery to the wider general public. His popularity should increase as he becomes better known.
What about the Fox News poll that had Obama up 22 percent with women just days ago? nIf the presidential election were held today, how would you vote if the candidates were: n nDemocrat Barack Obama Men 37% Women 55% (+18% Women) nRepublican Mitt Romney Men 46% Women 33% (+13% Men) nRomney over Obama (+9% Men) (-22% women) n nThis poll was conducted May 13-15, 2012
It also had Obama up by 7 over Romney overall–Obama's best showing in any poll. n nGiven Obama's troubles of late, that really looks to be an outlier among polls.
And further considering that this poll had a bogus partisan ID breakdown of D/R/I 32/22/38, when most reliable voter ID surveys point to D and R evenly matched at 35, it gave Demokrats a non-existing 10-point boost; meaning Romney is at this time actually leading with women (and almost all other categories).