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What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, May 05, 2012 

President Obama officially launches his reelection campaign today with appearances in Ohio and Virginia, states critical to his reelection, and recent polling shows both are in play. But overall, it’s been another so-so week for the president, with his well-received plan for winding down the war in Afghanistan offset by another anemic jobs report. 

The president continues to holds a slight lead over likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney in combined polling of the key swing states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.   During 2008, Obama picked up 52% of the vote in these states to Republican nominee John McCain’s 48%. The so-called Core Four states have 75 Electoral College votes, and if the president wins even two of these states, it will be just about impossible for the GOP candidate to win the White House. 

But as Scott Rasmussen explains in a Rasmussen Report radio update, Romney needs to win all of the Core Four states. Scott is now doing three Rasmussen Report radio updates every weekday, syndicated nationally by the WOR Radio Network. 

Obama still leads Romney in a head-to-head matchup in Nevada, while Romney has crossed the 50% mark against the president in Montana. On the national level, Obama and Romney continue to run neck-and-neck in the daily Presidential Tracking Poll. That matchup is updated every morning at 9:30 Eastern. 

The closeness of the race suggests that “Election 2012 is shaping up to be the political equivalent of trench warfare that fails to resolve anything,” Scott Rasmussen argues in his latest syndicated column. “America has changed dramatically over the last generation or two, but U.S. politicians keep refighting the same old partisan battles.” 

The divide between voters and the Political Class is the central theme of Scott’s New York Times bestselling book, The People’s Money: How the American People Will Balance the Budget and Eliminate the Federal Debt. He contends that voters are ready to support the kind of long-term thoughtful changes needed to balance the budget and eliminate the federal debt. The only thing standing in the way is a Political Class committed to defending the status quo. 

Voters see the 2012 presidential candidates as offering a choice between the political left and right. But they view Obama as more committed to the left than Romney is to the right. As for voters themselves, they remain more conservative when it comes to money issues but are as divided as ever on social policy. 

Voters are also narrowly divided over how important a presidential candidate’s wife is when it comes to how they will vote this November. Women voters place more importance on the wife than men do. 

The president began the week marking the one-year anniversary of the killing of terrorist mastermind and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Most voters agree the United States and its allies are winning the war on terror.  But just 11% think the war on terror is over with bin Laden out of the picture. A majority also still thinks another terrorist attack on this country is at least somewhat likely within the next year, although that includes just 16% who believe it’s Very Likely. 

The United States invaded Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks, and in a dramatic visit there on Tuesday, the president detailed his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from America’s longest-running war by 2014. Most voters support the plan but worry the United States will not withdraw from Afghanistan quickly enough. 

The president ended the week with another bad jobs report. Those findings were predicted earlier in the week by the Rasmussen Employment Index which slipped another three points in April, bringing it down to the level measured at the start of the year. The Employment Index measures workers’ perceptions of the labor market and still finds more confidence than was present throughout 2011. 

The Rasmussen Consumer and Investor Indexes, which measure daily confidence among those groups, were up slightly at week’s end. However, the government’s report on job creation often has a significant impact on consumer and investor confidence. The stock markets fell sharply yesterday in response but the change in consumer confidence often takes several days to a week. 

One-in-four Americans has someone in the family who is graduating from high school or college this spring, and adults nationwide overwhelmingly believe it will be tough for those graduates to find a job in the current economy. 

Speaking of the economy, most voters still want to repeal the president’s health care law. Belief that it will drive up health care costs is at its highest level in months. 

Voters continue to voice an overwhelmingly negative assessment of Congress’ performance. Just eight percent (8%) of Likely U.S. Voters think the national legislature is doing a good or excellent job. Sixty-four percent (64%) rate Congress’ job performance as poor.

Republicans continue to hold a three-point lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot. The number of Democrats and Republicans in the United States dipped slightly in April, while the number of unaffiliated voters is up two points. 

It’s been two years since the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, and most voters now believe there will be little, if any, long-term environmental damage from the disaster. Just 10% still believe there will be devastating long-term environmental impact from the oil spill, down from 37% two years ago. 

Read the rest of the article with links at Rasmussen