Polls

Poll: Obama gets Dem convention bounce, up 6 points over Romney

by Jonathan Easley - 09/10/12 8:32 PM ET

A new poll released Monday confirms President Obama is enjoying a sustained bounce after last week’s Democratic National Convention.

Obama takes 52 percent support among registered voters over Mitt Romney at 46, according to the latest CNN-ORC poll. Polling began for the survey on Friday, a day after the completion of the convention in Charlotte, N.C.

{mosads}The new figures represent a strong gain for the president. Obama and Romney were tied at 48 percent in the previous CNN-ORC survey, which concluded polling a day before the Republican National Convention.

With both conventions completed, Democrats were more enthusiastic than Republicans surveyed in the poll, with 82 percent saying they were at least somewhat enthusiastic, compared to 76 for GOP supporters.

The poll also shows Obama has a massive lead over Romney in favorability, with 57 percent saying they have a positive view of the president, compared to 42 negative. Romney is above water on the question, but only at 48 favorable and 47 unfavorable.

The two candidates remain statistically tied on the issue of who is better equipped to handle the economy, with 50 percent saying Obama and 49 percent saying Romney.

The poll indicates that the Romney campaign’s attacks against Obama on Medicare have failed to take hold, with voters preferring the president 54 to 43 percent on the issue.

On Monday, the Romney campaign looked to diminish the importance of a post-convention bounce for the president in a memo warning supporters against reading too deeply into the latest polling numbers.

“Don’t get too worked up about the latest polling,” Romney pollster Neil Newhouse wrote in the memo. “While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar high from the conventions, the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly. The reality of the Obama economy will reassert itself as the ultimate downfall of the Obama presidency, and Mitt Romney will win this race.”

The CNN/ORC poll falls in line with other surveys showing an Obama bounce post-Charlotte.

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The candidates entered the conventions statistically tied in other polls.   Romney didn’t receive much of a bump following the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., late last month. But the daily tracking polls from Gallup and Rasmussen show Obama now holding a 4- and 5-percentage-point lead, respectively, after last week’s Democratic National Convention.

The CNN-ORC poll of 1,022 Americans was conducted between Sept. 7 and Sept. 9 and has a 3 percentage point margin of error.

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