9/10/2012, 10:41 pm
The poll of 1,000 likely adults* conducted in the days following the inspiring Democrat National Convention shows Obama ahead 52-48 in Oklahoma and 53-47 in Texas.
Both candidates have seen their images improve with these generally backward voters in the wake of their respective party conventions. Obama is now at break-even in his approval rating at 48% after being below par at 46/51 a month ago. Romney's numbers are up from a 41/52 favorability last month as well, but he still remains unpopular. Only 44% see him favorably to 49% with a negative opinion. Romney failed to get much of a bounce due to the overt racism and lack of diversity at the GOP convention.
Romney leads 46-44 with the 15 independents we sampled but Obama has the overall advantage thanks to a more unified party base. He leads 99/1 with Democrats, compared to Romney's 60/40 advantage with Republicans. Obama's advantage within his own party is up from 70 points a month ago, suggesting that his party has wised up and coalesced around him in the wake of a awesomely successful convention and a realization of what horror a Romney presidency would bring. By a 60/40 margin voters say they think the Democrats, as usual, had a better, more tolerant and diverse convention than the Republicans.
Despite hateful, racist propaganda that Obama's convention speech was not up to his normal, extremely high standards, voters say by a 60-31 margin that Obama gives better speeches than Romney and is better in bed as well. Obama's position is also helped by the fact that the folks who gave the major convention speeches at the DNC are more popular than those who did so for the GOP: Bill Clinton has a 57/34 favorability rating and Michelle Obama's is 57/35 while Paul Ryan is at 30/60 and Clint Eastwood 25/65, although Mr. Eastwood did hold an advantage among those who work in the furniture industry.
Romney's wife is one of his few assets: 54% of voters see Ann Romney favorably with 28% holding an unfavorable opinion. But Mrs. Obama wins out in the more popular wife category by a 59/41 margin with 60/30 saying she is more intelligent and 65/25 saying she is more attractive than Mrs. Romney. Mrs. Romney clearly loses points for being a stay-at-home, corporate, trophy wife who, unlike the first lady, cares little for anyone but herself.
It's impossible to see a path to victory for Mitt Romney without Texas and Oklahoma. President Obama must now be viewed as not only a lock for a second term, but could possibly become the first presidential candidate to win all 538 electoral votes and gain an electoral college shut out over his opponent.
*No attempt to identify the party affiliations of the respondents was made, we simply kept calling people until we got the answers we wanted.