Romney leads by 1 in tight Florida race

PPP's newest Florida poll finds a 5 point gain for Mitt Romney over the last three weeks. He now leads Barack Obama by a 49/48 margin, after trailing 50-46 in late September. The shift in the race is largely attributable to independent voters shifting their preferences. Where before Obama had a 51-40 advantage with them, now Romney's taken the lead by a 51/43 spread. When it comes to the biggest issue in the election, the economy, Romney's edge over Obama expands to 51/46 on who voters trust more.

Romney and Obama's images have headed in difference directions since the Presidential debate. Voters have warmed up to Romney a good bit, going from giving him a negative favorability rating at 44/51 to a positive one at 50/47. Meanwhile Obama's approval numbers have gone the other way. Where before he was on positive ground with 51% of voters approving of him to 47% who disapproved, now he's in slightly negative territory at 48/50.

There's been a fairly large shift among white voters over the last three weeks. They've gone from favoring Romney by 11 points at 53-42 to 17 points at 57-40. Non-white voters are pretty steady from the last poll including Hispanics who give Obama a slight edge at 50/47.  Obama has a small advantage with voters under 65, but Romney erases that with a 52/45 advantage among seniors. Likewise Obama's up with women (51-47) but Romney's ahead by even more with men (52-44).

The Vice Presidential debate doesn't seem to have made much of a difference with voters in the state. They think Biden won it 44/40, including a 45/34 victory with independents. But in spite of that they still have a more favorable opinion of Ryan (50/44 favorability) than they do of the Vice President (45/50).

Romney's gains aren't extending down the ballot. Bill Nelson leads Connie Mack IV 45-37 in the US Senate race, little different from a 46-37 spread three weeks ago. Nelson's got a good amount of crossover support, taking 17% of the Republican vote. And even though Obama's lost the lead with independents, Nelson still has a narrow advantage with them at 42-39. Nelson's not terribly popular, with a 38/41 approval rating. But Mack continues to be far more unpopular with only 32% of voters rating him favorably to 45% with a negative opinion.

Other notes from Florida:

-Rick Scott continues to be unpopular with only 37% of voters approving of him to 46% who disapprove. But he trails a generic Democrat only 45-43. His standing has improved quite a bit compared to a year ago.

-The generic Congressional ballot in the state is a tie at 44%, a 4 point improvement for Republicans from last month when they trailed 47-43.

Full results here

Comments

[scott]

It really strikes you - with women, Obama's margin dropped 10 points from the last time, and his margin with men dropped 1. Massachusetts looked the same. If he's going to lose this thing, it's because he forgot from that last debate (when women were creatures unknown to him and not worth mentioning, whose concrete concerns were less important to him than his word salad fetish) that they exist.

[David Clark]

Uninstalling Obama – █████████████▒▒▒ 90% complete