Sunday, October 21, 2012

New poll: Obama down to 1-point lead in Ohio

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Not good:

President Barack Obama's lead in Ohio is down to a point, a survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling on Saturday showed.

According to the poll, Obama leads Romney among likely Buckeye State voters 49 percent to 48 percent. That's within the poll's margin of error and a dip from PPP's survey of Ohio last week, which showed the president with a 5-point edge.

The poll was conducted after Tuesday’s debate, and the results suggest the town hall in Hempstead, N.Y. was not a game changer for the president, whose overall lead dropped despite a plurality of Ohio voters declaring him the winner of the debate.

"Our Ohio poll reflects the new reality of this election — every battleground state is looking like a toss up," said Dean Debnam, president of PPP, in the poll's corresponding press release. "Our most recent polls in Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin have all found the candidates within 2 points of each other."

But let's not let this bring us down.

What this says to me is two things:

First, that the third debate, on Monday, will be more significant than it otherwise would have been. Foreign policy rarely moves the needle in terms of public opinion -- even now with Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and now Iran prominently in the news -- but the media will treat it as the tiebreaker after Obama and Romney split the first two and at this point in the race even the tiniest shift could push the election one way or the other. 

Second, that we all need to do our part, because it's that close and get-out-the-vote efforts may turn out to be the deciding factors. Make sure you vote, and get everyone you know to vote. There's just no excuse for apathy. The choice in this election is clear, and every vote counts.

Do you want to go forward towards a brighter future, building on the economic recovery and making sure there is opportunity for all Americans, or do you want to back to the past, to the very policies that created the economic mess in the first place, to the politics of division and exclusion and the rule of the rich at the expense of everyone else?

If it's the brighter future you want, the choice is President Obama.

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1 Comments:

  • PPD is a democratic firm that typically is 1 to 3 point lean democratic. Ominous news that they now have Ohio at Obama plus 1. I have read the early voting in Ohio is down 7 from what Obama accomplished in 2008, another ominous sign.

    By Blogger Kansas City, at 12:43 PM  

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