Finally, after months of Iowa not being polled, PPP has come out with fresh new polling from Iowa, and it shows Obama leading Romney, 51%-41%. As Tom Jensen explains:
The reason for Obama's enhanced standing in the state is pretty simple- over the last six months he's become more popular and Romney's become less popular. Obama was under water at a 43/52 approval spread, now he's on narrowly positive ground at 49/46. The most noteworthy shift has come with independents, who he's gone from 37/54 to 52/41 with.
....
In the head to head Obama leads with independents by a striking 54/34 margin. Obama gets 90% of the Democratic vote while only 79% of Republicans are committed to Romney. In a sense that's good news for Romney because it indicates he has a lot more room to grow and make Iowa more competitive. But it also speaks to the fact that Obama's base is a lot more sold on him than Romney's is.
And in some news sure to make Ron Paul supporters tear their hair out even more over the media "ignoring" him:
Romney actually isn't even the strongest candidate against Obama in Iowa. That designation goes to Ron Paul who trails the President by just 8 points at 47-39. Where Romney trails Obama by 20 points with independents, Paul has only an 8 point disadvantage.
You can get the full results
here in a .pdf file.
Sigh... if you look at my diary history, you'll know that I've had quite a few dealings with Ron Paul fans. That's why stuff like this annoys me. From the Iowa poll, 20% of Iowans who call themselves "very liberal" have a favorable view of Ron Paul, and in the head-to-head matchup with Obama, 17% of the "very liberal" would actually vote for Ron Paul over Barack Obama. Someone needs to educate them as to what Paul would do to Social Security, Medicare, and public education.
BTW, 17% of "very liberal" Iowans would ALSO vote for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama. I don't know why these 17% enjoy shooting themselves in the foot, but they seem to like it as a pasttime.
As for the war on women, as with many other polls, Obama's approval rating is underwater with men, but positive with women. Meanwhile, Romney's favorables are underwater with both genders.
Obama Approval
Overall Women Men
Approve 49% 54% 44%
Disapprove 46% 40% 52%
Not sure 5% 6% 4%
Romney Favorability
Overall Women Men
Favorable 34% 29% 39%
Unfavorable 56% 61% 51%
Not sure 10% 9% 10%
Also, check out
CPDem81's diary that has the Ohio numbers from PPP.