Obama leads 50-47 nationally

PPP's daily national tracking poll now finds Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 50-47 based on interviews conducted between Thursday and Saturday. This is the first time either candidate has led by more than 2 points in the three weeks we've been doing this survey. Obama has led in 4 individual days of polling in a row since Wednesday, suggesting that he may be getting a bounce based on his leadership during Hurricane Sandy.

Obama's approval is now on positive ground at 48/47. On our release last Saturday night he was at 44/52, so his net approval has improved 9 points in the last week. Obama's net favorability rating of +5 (51/46) is now 7 points better than Romney's is at -2 (47/49).

There are a couple reasons Obama has pulled into this small lead. One is that he's turned what had been a persistent disadvantage with independents into a 49/44 advantage. The other is that he's reduced what had been a 20+ point deficit with white voters back down to a 57/40 spread. When you combine that with his 89/9 lead among African Americans and 67/28 edge with Hispanics it's the formula for a small overall lead.

There are also indications that young voters might be renewing their enthusiasm for Obama in the closing stage of the campaign. He's leading 66/33 with respondents under 30, making up for his 49/47 deficit with the rest of the electorate.

It's still a very close race but momentum seems to be on Obama's side in the closing stretch.

Full results here

Comments

[Mark Atheer]

looked for percentage of DEM/GOP/IND responding to poll...didn't see it...did I miss something?

[Grgerald]

Wonderful! "This is the first time either candidate has led by more than 2 points in the three weeks we've been doing this survey. Obama has led in 4 individual days of polling in a row since Wednesday, suggesting that he may be getting a bounce based on his leadership during Hurricane Sandy."

[Dee]

Seems inaccurate. Hiding the Libya terrorist attack. Caused 6 billion in debt in less then 4 years. No new plans.feds putting 40 billion a month to calm the economy which makes it look like we are improving but will cost the dollar to have lower value.

[Flor]

"These polls can't be right, they're not what I wanted to see." - Dee

[Sean]

The D/R/I split here is 40/35/26 so they oversampled Democrats and undersampled Independents in this poll.

[HeyPaulie]

Most of the recent growth in independents has been a shift from Republican registration to no party; it is effectively a 'leaning Republican' group. If Obama is even close to a tie with this group, it kills Romney's chances.