Here in Ohio, one of the key battleground states, Obama is looking pretty good right now:
President Obama leads all 4 remaining Republican challengers in Ohio among general election voters. He leads Mitt Romney by 7 points (49-42), Newt Gingrich by 12 (51-39), Ron Paul by 10 (48-38), and Rick Santorum performs best, trailing Obama by 6 points (48-42).
Obama’s job approval rating stands at 48% approval and 48% disapproval, an improvement from 41-49 the last time PPP polled Ohio in November. By contrast, the Republican field’s collective favorability rating appears to be suffering from the negative turn the primary contests have taken in the last several weeks. All Republican candidates have net negative favorability ratings, some of them quite large – Newt Gingrich is at 25-59, Ron Paul is at 27-57, Romney’s at 28-56, and Santorum again performs best at 35-48.
Ohio isn’t the only place Obama is looking good. Even nationally he has been up and the right leaning Rasmussen just gave him a +4 advantage this week nationally over Romney and even a bigger lead over Gingrich:
In potential Election 2012 matchups, it’s President Obama 47% and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney 43%. However, if former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the Republican nominee, the president holds a double-digit lead, 50% to 38% (see tracking history)
If you look at a longer range of polling, such as this from RCP, you can see definite momentum for Obama:
While the President currently only holds a +2.2 RCP average, the biggest momentum has come in the past couple of weeks, which also coincides with the increased negativity taking place in the GOP primary battle. If you only look at the past two weeks, Obama now has a +3.4 advantage. That explains why GOP insiders are starting to get really nervous:
Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman and leading GOP strategist, said: “I do think there is concern amongst a lot of Republicans that the nature of this debate has become counterproductive. I don’t think it’s something that won’t be overcome, but I’d say there’s frustration that [the campaign] is not more focused on the issues.”
Even Sarah Palin, who has been a vocal advocate for a long race, decried the tone Tuesday night.
“It diminishes the energy headed into the general,” Palin said on Fox, describing a “process that hasn’t been attractive to the electorate.”
With Obama looking stronger in Ohio and more than a month to go before Super Tuesday, when battleground states Ohio and Virginia hold their primaries, Obama stands a chance to grow even stronger. Newt’s speech last night indicated that he plans to continue the attacks and maybe even get more vicious. This will all help Obama out in the long run. Knowing that, I bet some of the GOP elders are pushing Newt to either calm down or drop out right now. I would sure love to be a fly on the wall for those conversations.