Mitt Romney beats Barack Obama in N.H. by significant margin
Republican Mitt Romney beats President Obama in New Hampshire – by a significant margin – in a Bloomberg News poll released today.
Also ominous for Obama, the survey found 53 percent of voters disapprove of the job he is doing as president.
Though New Hampshire voted for Obama in the 2008 general election, it is considered a battleground state as he seeks reelection in 2012.
The White House announced yesterday that the president will visit New Hampshire next Tuesday, his first trip to the state since Feb. 2, 2010.
In the poll, Romney bested Obama 50 percent to 40 percent in a head-to-head comparison of the GOP presidential front-runner and the Democratic incumbent.
A Bloomberg poll of Iowa caucus-goers released yesterday found Romney in a head-to-head tie with his Republican rivals Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul in that state.
But among likely New Hampshire primary voters, polled Nov. 10-12, Romney received support from 40 percent. His next closest competitor – Paul – was at 17 percent, followed by Gingrich at 11 percent.
The survey was conducted for Bloomberg by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, and questioned 500 New Hampshire residents, including 324 likely general election voters.
The poll of New Hampshire residents has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, as does the survey of likely primary voters. The survey of likely general election voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.
Romney has been consistently popular in New Hampshire, where he has a summer home, and where voters know his record in neighboring Massachusetts.
State Republicans are also likely to be fiscally conservative and socially moderate – a good combination for Romney, who is fiscally conservative but has a history of changing positions on social issues.
Romney does have one major weakness – 46 percent of New Hampshire voters in the Bloomberg poll said they would rule out supporting a candidate who supported a health insurance mandate.
Romney enacted one as part of a health insurance overhaul while governor of Massachusetts, but he opposes the mandatory coverage included in the federal overhaul but Obama.
But other candidates have weaknesses as well.
Fifty-one percent said they would not vote for a candidate who supported giving in-state tuition rates to children of illegal immigrants, as Texas Governor Rick Perry did; 43 percent would not vote for a candidate who supports a national sales tax, which Cain does.
Social issues such as abortion and gay marriage are not generally important to New Hampshire voters. Asked whether fiscal or social issues were more important to them, 83 percent were more worried about fiscal issues.
But that does not mean voters do not care about the moral values of their candidates. Forty percent would not vote for a candidate who was married three times and had an extramarital affair, as Gingrich had.
With Cain standing accused of sexual harassment by four women, 43 percent of voters said they would rule out voting for a candidate because of allegations of sexual harassment.
Asked specifically about the allegations against Cain, 22 percent said they did not believe Cain’s denials, while 17 percent believed him.
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