Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Debates deliver favorability edge to Romney; now above 50% in rating

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Mitt Romney crossed a major threshold early this week, moving above 50 percent in his favorability rating with voters, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls — and for the first time in the campaign he now leads President Obama on that measure.

The Republican presidential nominee has clearly benefited from the debates. He had a 44.5 percent favorability rating at the end of September, before the debates. But by Monday, when he and Mr. Obama faced off for the final debate of the campaign, Mr. Romney’s favorability average was up to 50.5 percent.

Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, said Mr. Romney’s favorability surge “really has been remarkable.”

“It was inevitable that Republicans were going to warm up to him once he became their nominee, but ever since his big victory in the first debate, his numbers with independents have improved a good deal as well,” he said. “We’re actually finding in our national tracking now that Romney’s favorability numbers are better than Obama‘s, which no one could have imagined six months ago.”

Mike McKenna, a Republican pollster, said Mr. Romney used the three 90-minute debates this month, with the largest national audiences he’s ever had, to humanize himself for voters who’d only seen snapshots in campaign commercials. news accounts and negative ads from the Obama campaign.

Via: Washington Times

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