Short answer: quite possibly.
Not even Mark Halperin could look at today's smallish array of data and declare it good news for John McCain Mitt Romney. Even the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls, which have often been the thin thread tethering Republicans to political happiness, could not muster a lead for the GOP standard bearer today.
Add to that a new Fox News national poll, and a North Carolina poll that might be too good to be true (and it may well be...more on that later), and it is a good day to be the president for more than the obvious reason that we all learned about roughly 12 hours ago.
On to the numbers:
PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Fox News): Obama d. Romney (45-40)
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-44)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama tied with Romney (45-45)
MICHIGAN (NBC News/Marist): Obama d. Romney (47-43)
NEW HAMPSHIRE (NBC News/Marist): Obama tied with Romney (45-45)
NORTH CAROLINA (NBC News/Marist): Obama d. Romney (46-44)
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
AZ-SEN (Rasmussen): Jeff Flake (R) 47, Richard Carmona (D) 31
MI-SEN (NBC News/Marist): Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) 49, Pete Hoekstra (R) 37
NC-GOV (NBC News/Marist): Pat McCrory (R) 43, Walter Dalton (D) 41
WI-SEN—R (Feldman Group for Democrat Tammy Baldwin): Eric Hovde 27, Tommy Thompson 26, Mark Neumann 13, Jeff Fitzgerald 9
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...
The reason I hedged in the open is simple: a couple of good days do not make a trend. But let's look at the stats—this is the widest lead for Barack Obama in the Gallup tracking poll since the end of April. That has to be considered notable. Furthermore, this week delivered polls with Obama leads in the following states: Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It goes without saying that Barack Obama carries all of those states in November, it is lights-out for Mitt Romney.
President Obama, of course, looked pretty good in April, too, only to have a comparably rough go of it, data-wise, in May and (most of) June. That slide began to level off, though, around the middle of the month. Now, at least preliminarily, it feels as if Obama has bounced off the floor and is trending upward.
What gets really interesting is what happens now. Does the removal of specter of health care's elimination in the courts give Obama a bump in the near-term? Or do pissed off Republicans get fired up and ready to go, negating any post-SCOTUS momentum? Both scenarios are plausible, but with a big holiday week coming up next week, it might be the second or third week of July before we know for sure.
In other polling news:
- One interesting McNugget from the Fox News poll: there may be more evidence that Barack Obama's call on immigration two weeks ago was a political winner. 43 percent of voters approve of the president's job performance on immigration, and 45 percent disapprove. If that sounds underwhelming, compare it to where Fox News had it just one month ago. It was at a net negative 11 percent (38/49). That's a net improvement of nine points in a month. On any issue, a president would kill for that kind of improvement. What's more, when asked more narrowly about his decision to halt deportation of immigrants who came here as children, voters gave a pretty substantial thumbs-up (54/36).
- So...is that North Carolina poll off the fairway? There are two data points within that poll that have to raise an eyebrow or two. First off, look at the partisan composition of the sample. When Independents were pressed, the partisan breakdown was Democrats +15 (51/36/13). That's even more optimistic than the 2008 exit poll sample in the Tar Heel State (which was D+11). The second bit of data was the secondary question about voter preference in the governor's election. As has been the case in most polls to date, Republican Pat McCrory leads. But he leads by just two points (43-41), and no one has had the race that close.
However, that isn't that far off of other polls in the gubernatorial race (several, since the May primary, have had the race in the 5-8 point range). Therefore, it's closer to the pin than...say...Rasmussen's laugher of a poll here less than a week ago, which had McCrory up by fourteen points. And that same poll from the House of Ras had Romney up by three. So, in summary, I'd expect that North Carolina is a true coin flip, and not the "Leans GOP" that everyone in the pundit class keeps insisting that it is. Could Romney win it? Sure...by definition, a coin flip implies a 50/50 shot. But I would not be shocked if either guy won this state, which could well be the closest one in the country come November.
- Ordinarily, it would invite a lot of cynicism to see a presumptive nominee release a poll of the other party's primary, without releasing any general election numbers. That said, I think I see Tammy Baldwin's campaign working here in Wisconsin. The conventional wisdom has long been that former GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson is the frontrunner in the race, both in the primary and the general election. Therefore, it behooves Baldwin to remind both the pundit class and the voters that Thompson is far from a lock to win the nomination.
Another data point to consider: last week's Marquette poll had Tommy Thompson as (far and away) the most electable Republican, leading Baldwin by eight points. But it also showed Hovde as (far and away) the least electable Republican, with Baldwin up nine. Which, for what it is worth, is another incentive for Baldwin to release a primary poll that puts Hovde in the mix as the leading opponent for Thompson in August's GOP Senate primary. If the poll is right, that would be yet another huge game changer in the Senate cycle, and yet another one to the detriment of the GOP.