Official portrait of Barack Obama
Barack Obama just endured a round of mixed polling in Florida, and one more poll indicates he could have a tough race there. While PPP showed him with mediocre approvals but a decent lead over non-Romney opponents, Mason-Dixon and Quinnipiac were substantially more pessimistic on his approvals.
Now Suffolk University joins the fray. Their numbers are overall fairly similar to PPP's, except they show Romney edging Obama by a point instead of PPP's two-point Obama lead.
Suffolk University:
Mitt Romney (R): 43
Barack Obama (D-inc): 42
Barack Obama (D-inc): 44
Mike Huckabee (R): 41
Barack Obama (D-inc): 52
Sarah Palin (R): 34
Barack Obama (D-inc): 49
Donald Trump (R): 34
Barack Obama (D-inc): 41
Tim Pawlenty (R): 28
Barack Obama (D-inc): 45
Michele Bachmann (R): 30
Barack Obama (D-inc): 45
Newt Gingrich (R): 36
Barack Obama (D-inc): 45
Michele Bachmann (R): 30
Barack Obama (D-inc): 47
Haley Barbour (R): 26
Barack Obama (D-inc): 48
Ron Paul (R): 30
Suffolk gives him 48/44 favorables, but underwater 41/48 job approval.
Not awful numbers, but not great, either. Leading the Pawlentys and Barbours of the world is cold comfort given that they're still largely unknown. Being essentially tied with Romney, actually trailing a point, ought to indicate that a better-known GOP candidate could take Florida next fall, with a little luck.
Florida is always a tossup state and Obama can win without it, but of substantial concern to the President should be PPP's recent poll of Pennsylvania, where he is actually down a single point to Mitt Romney:
Public Policy Polling (4/7-10, Pennsylvania voters):
Mitt Romney (R): 43
Barack Obama (D-inc): 42
Barack Obama (D-inc): 45
Mike Huckabee (R): 44
Barack Obama (D-inc): 50
Sarah Palin (R): 39
Barack Obama (D-inc): 45
Rick Santorum (R): 43
Barack Obama (D-inc): 47
Newt Gingrich (R): 39
PPP pegs his job approval at 42/52 in the Keystone State.
Again, not good. Obama doesn't need Florida to win, but he could sure use Pennsylvania, a 20-electoral-vote bedrock of the Democratic electoral strategy.
Are things as bad as all that? Probably not quite. The poll reveals an electorate more like 2010 (which reported voting for Obama by four points) than the last Presidential election of 2008 (when he won Pennsylvania by 10 points). The poll also has 21% of black voters going for Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney and at least 11% of black voters going to all of the Republicans, which seems unlikely to say the least.
Still, it's clear that President Obama has a lot of work to do in both of these key states - especially in the Keystone State, where he cruised in 2008.