Public Policy Polling (PDF) (4/7-10, Registered Voters, March results in parentheses)
Barack Obama (D) 48 (48)
Mike Huckabee (R) 43 (43)Barack Obama (D) 47 (47)
Mitt Romney (R) 41 (42)Barack Obama (D) 48 (--)
Chris Christie (R) 39 (--)Barack Obama (D) 48 (--)
Rand Paul (R) 38 (--)Barack Obama (D) 52 (50)
Newt Gingrich (R) 38 (39)Barack Obama (D) 54 (53)
Sarah Palin (R) 36 (38)
On first blush, these numbers aren't bad. The President leads all the major players in the GOP field, despite still having very middling job approval numbers (this incarnation of PPP's poll has the President languishing at a 47/48 spread). The margins are steady or incrementally increasing.
Add to that the fact that the closest Republican challenger to Obama lay five points behind, which is only a couple of points beneath the margin Obama enjoyed in his landslide maiden voyage in 2008.
So, given that, why does PPP's Tom Jensen think that these numbers might actually be cause for alarm?
Consider who is still on the fence:
Here's the catch though: in every one of those match ups the vast majority of undecided voters disapprove of Obama...they just either don't yet know or not yet completely sold on the potential Republican candidates so they go into the undecided column. Chances are when push comes to shove those folks are going to vote against Obama if they don't think he's doing a good job. So we also calculated the numbers allocating the undecideds based on their approval or disapproval of Obama- when you do that Obama only leads Romney and Huckabee 51-49, is just up 52-48 on Paul and Christie, has a 54-46 advantage over Gingrich, and still wallops Palin if only by a 56-44 margin.
In many ways, this result is the wholly understandable by-product of a very undefined multicandidate GOP field. Consider the independent voters: Obama has a slightly postive net approval with this group (49/42), but smokes the entire GOP field among Indies. Only Chris Christie keeps Obama within single digits with that swing voting corps. It is a reasonable assumption that Christie does the best with Independent voters simply because he is the least well-known with that group (he has a mediocre 27/28 fav/unfav with Indies).
The peril for Obama lies in the fact that Republican voters, unless the primary devolves into total fratricide, will eventually coalesce around someone. When that happens, his job approval has to head north of the breakeven point. If it doesn't, it is hard to imagine him holding onto a lead of 5+ points, as PPP's allocation of the undecided votes already attests.
As flawed and fractured as the GOP field seems to be, perhaps Obama can continue to rely on his success being aided by the weakness of his enemies. But it is probably not wise to simply presume that his good fortune will hold out for another 19 months. It is going to be essential for Obama to create a bit of luck for himself by regaining those critical few extra points of public goodwill that are the difference between victory and defeat.
Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/NTtZ0tpbuTI/-PPP-National-poll:-Obama-leads,-but
Frank R. Lautenberg Frank R. Wolf Fred Upton Frederica S. Wilson
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