One reason Romney has been outperforming Gingrich in hypothetical match-ups against President Obama is due to independents. Now, both main Republicans are at a disadvantage.
Obama’s numbers in this poll, conducted Wednesday through Sunday, have tilted positive, both among all Americans (53 percent favorable) and among independents (51 percent favorable). The president’s favorability rating had, for the first time, dipped below the 50-percent mark last fall.
In a separate Post-ABC poll released last week, the president kicked off the year with a job approval rating of 48 percent, a bit of a recovery, but still below his recent predecessors at the start of their reelection years.
The new poll shows moderates now giving Obama a better-than-2-to-1 split, with 66 percent expressing favorable views and 31 percent unfavorable. Those are his best numbers in periodic polls back to April 2010.
For his part, Gingrich runs solidly the other way among these middle-of-the-roaders, at 20 percent positive, 58 percent negative. Romney, whom moderates rated about evenly throughout the fall and into early January, are now about 2 to 1 negative: 27 percent hold favorable views, 52 percent negative ones.
One group that continues to elude Obama in his moderate resurgence on favorability is whites with annual household incomes under $50,000. Since December, whites with higher incomes are up eight points in favorable impressions of the president; those under the $50K threshold are basically unmoved at 40 percent favorable, 56 percent unfavorable.
This is also a group â€" whites with incomes under $50K â€" that’s moved away from Romney over the past two weeks, with his unfavorable numbers jumping from 29 to 49 percent (exactly where Gingrich is as well).
