Public Policy Polling, Feb 10-12
Wow. This one's hard to interpret any other way than a knockout for Obama.
The biggest surprise in the numbers might be how badly Obama is beating Mitt Romney- he leads him by 16 points at 54-38. That's a major departure from PPP's previous 3 Michigan President polls, which found Obama ahead by only 4-7 points. Romney's seen a major decline in his personal favorability in the state over the last 6 months from 39/43 to now 29/58. His numbers have dropped across the board but the most striking shift is with independents. He's gone from a +14 spread with them at 48/34 to a -20 one at 32/52.
Yes, it's just one poll. No, it doesn't guarantee a win.
But if I were a Romney Republican, I might start to panic just a bit.
As it happens, Michigan voters approve of the assistance to the auto companies 52-36:
With that majority who support it, Romney's favorability is 19/75 and he trails Obama 81-15. 62% of Republican voters oppose the bailout to only 24% supportive so that issue may not hurt Romney too much in the primary, but his stance could take the state off the board for him in November.
Any question? Not to me. Romney's positioning on issues that matter to Michigan is a disaster for November, regardless of whether he beats Santorum on Feb. 28.
Note: Margin of error +/-4.14