Presidential Polls 2012: Obama Gaining Favor for Sandy Response
Most presidential polls show President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney neck and neck in the home stretch of the election, but Obama may get a slight boost for his response to Hurricane Sandy. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll says most likely voters, including those who support Romney, say Obama is doing a good job in dealing with the super storm.
Nearly eight in 10 likely voters say the president has done an excellent or good job in his response to the hurricane that struck the East Coast this week.
New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie has also lauded the president for his response to Hurricane Sandy. Obama visited devastated areas of New Jersey on Wednesday. "The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit," said Christie. "He gave me his number at the White House and told me to call him if I needed anything."
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Obama and Romney each have the support of 49 percent of likely voters, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll. The latest polls from the Pew Research Center and Reuters/Ipsos also show the race to be a tie, with less than a week left before the election.
An AP-GfK poll shows Romney with 47 percent support and Obama with 45 percent, a statistical tie.
Interestingly, among voters who are basing their vote on Obama's first-term performance, 58 percent say they are backing Romney and only 41 percent are supporting Obama. Among those who are focusing on what Obama would do in a second term, 58 percent are voting for Obama and 40 percent for Romney.
The president is winning the favor of female voters with 52 percent choosing Obama and 46 percent choosing Romney.
The Post-ABC tracking poll is based on interviews conducted Oct. 27-30, among a random sample of 1,288 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
