Polls in three swing states show Obama leading despite poor approvals

Rocky Mountains (near Fairplay, CO)

Over the last week or so, Public Policy Polling has released new surveys in three swing states Barack Obama won in 2008; the states differ a fair bit from one another, but the poll results are all rather similar. I've put together a chart of the results from all three, North Carolina (July trendlines in parens), Ohio (May), and Colorado (February):

Candidates	NC	OH	CO
Barack Obama (D)	46 (45)	45 (46)	48 (47)
Mitt Romney (R)	43 (45)	43 (42)	41 (41)
Undecided	11 (10)	12 (12)	11 (13)
Barack Obama (D)	52 (50)	51 (50)	54 (55)
Sarah Palin (R)	39 (42)	38 (40)	38 (36)
Undecided	9 (8)	11 (10)	8 (9)
Barack Obama (D)	50 (46)	48	51
Michele Bachmann (R)	40 (43)	41	39
Undecided	10 (10)	11	9
Barack Obama (D)	50 (46)	47	51
Herman Cain (R)	37 (42)	39	35
Undecided	13 (12)	15	14
Barack Obama (D)	48	45	51
Rick Perry (R)	40	41	38
Undecided	12	14	11

In spite of everything?including a drop to record lows in his national job approval numbers?Barack Obama is edging Mitt Romney and keeping clear leads on the rest of the field. And Obama's state-by-state approval numbers are pretty crummy, by and large:

North Carolina: 46-50 (45-51)

Ohio: 44-52 (46-49)

Colorado: 46-50 (51-45)

The president saw a slight uptick in North Carolina, but PPP polls there every month (it's their home state) so the trendlines are over a much shorter period of time. That's usually a good thing, but in this case, I'm more interested to note that despite the president's approval ratings eroding over time in Ohio and Colorado, his toplines against Republicans have remained steady. As Tom explains in his post on Ohio:

How can that be? Well Obama's pretty unpopular. But consider these favorability numbers for the Republican alternatives: Mitt Romney, 30% favorable/49% unfavorable, Rick Perry, 28% favorable/37% unfavorable, Michele Bachmann, 30% favorable/49% unfavorable, Sarah Palin, 34% favorable/59% unfavorable, and Herman Cain, 22% favorable/35% unfavorable.

And the same story in Colorado:

Voters may not like [Obama] but they like him a heck of a lot more than any of the Republican candidates. Cain's net favorability is -10 at 20/30, Perry's is -14 at 24/38, Romney's is -21 at 30/51, Bachmann's is -22 at 28/50, and Palin's is -27 at 33/60. Obama's definitely benefiting from a "lesser of two evils" mindset.

There's a caveat, though:

In all of these match ups there are a lot more undecided Republicans than Democrats so at least the Romney and Perry match ups with Obama are sheer toss ups. But it's still kind of amazing the President's holding up as well as he is with these approval numbers.

In other words, these leads (in spite of everything) might look pretty impressive now, but getting to 50 percent in each of these states is another thing entirely. And that's only if things don't get any worse than they already are for Obama?not something I'd want to bet on.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/9UebnupyuU0/-Polls-in-three-swing-states-show-Obama-leading-despite-poor-approvals

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