(Reuters) – The 2012 presidential election is more than six months away, but here is what we know so
far: It is going to be close, it is going to be nasty, and the outcome could turn on a series of unpredictable
events.
former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are seen in a combination file photo. REUTERS/Jim Bourg
and Jason Reed
Democratic
President Barack Obama is a slight favorite now, but as tightening poll numbers suggest, his lead over Republican Mitt Romney
is tenuous.
A tepid economic recovery, voter pessimism about the future and a job approval rating largely stuck in the
danger zone below 50 percent mean Obama could have a hard time matching his performance in 2008, when enthusiasm for his
promise of change propelled him to victory over Republican Senator John McCain with 53 percent of the vote.
Such
factors, along with a motivated Republican Party determined to oust Obama, mean that despite a bruising Republican primary
fight that dented Romney’s popularity – particularly among women – the Republican has plenty of reason for hope in the
November 6 election.
Political analysts see a fall election fight that looks more like the nail-biters won by George
W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 than Obama’s relative blowout victory in 2008.
Three-quarters of American voters still think
the economy – the top election issue by far in most polls – is in a recession, a recent ABC/Washington Post survey found, and
more voters trust Romney to deal with the economy than Obama.
Polls also routinely indicate that more than six of
every 10 voters think the nation is on the wrong track, a critical and closely watched measure of the collective American
psyche.
“Most Americans think they are worse off now than they were four years ago, and that’s not what an incumbent
president wants to see,” Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown said.
He compared Obama’s burden in defending his
economic leadership with former President George W. Bush’s 2004 struggle to defend the Iraq war. Bush narrowly won
re-election that year over Democrat John Kerry in a race dominated by debate over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
“This
race looks a lot more like 2004 than 2008,” Brown said. “The economy is Barack Obama’s Iraq war. The 2004 election was a
referendum on the Iraq war, and 2012 is going to be a referendum on the economy.”
APRIL LEADS CAN
FIZZLE
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has seen a slight improvement in his poll ratings since
Republican rival Rick Santorum suspended his campaign last week and cleared Romney’s path to the party’s
nomination.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week showed Obama’s lead had shrunk to 4 points from an 11-point advantage in
early March. A new CBS News/New York Times poll has the race in a dead heat, with Obama and Romney each at 46
percent.
Gallup’s daily tracking poll on Monday gave Romney a 2-point edge over Obama, who had led by four points in
late March.
A presidential candidate’s standing in April, however, is not always a sign of things to come.
An
April 1992 Gallup poll gave President George H.W. Bush a 15-point lead over the eventual winner, Democrat Bill Clinton. In
April 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Republican Ronald Reagan by 8 percentage points. Reagan ultimately won by
10.
Complicating the outlook is looming uncertainty about the pace of the economic recovery, highlighted by a
disappointing March jobs report and high gas prices.
Those factors, as well as economic instability in Europe that
could spill over to the United States, and the potential for a foreign crisis just before the election, cloud Obama’s path
to victory in November.
“Obama has better personal ratings than Romney for now, but that may not matter if the economy
is in bad shape, if North Korea engages in provocative actions, if Iran is enriching uranium and there is a possibility of war in the Middle East
– all of those don’t bode well for an incumbent,” Democratic pollster Doug Schoen said.
An Israeli military strike
aimed at disrupting Iran’s nuclear weapons program would be the type of crisis that can shift an election in unpredictable
ways – much as the Wall Street crisis in September 2008 helped power Obama into office.
“Iran could be a real wild
card. All bets are off if that happens. You don’t know how Obama’s reaction would be viewed; it could work for or against
him,” said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota.
“In many ways, neither campaign is
really in charge of their own fate. A lot of things can go wrong for both Obama and Romney,” he said.
Romney must
still work to shore up his support among conservatives who mistrust him for some of the stances he took as governor of
liberal Massachusetts, including his backing of a state healthcare overhaul that became a precursor to Obama’s federal
plan.
But recent polls show the burning desire of conservatives to kick Obama out of the White House is rallying
Republicans.
VOTERS ‘ARE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING’
In the end, the election is likely to be decided by a
relatively small bloc of undecided, independent voters in fewer than a dozen battleground states.
A recent poll of
those swing voters by Third Way, a centrist think tank, found they viewed Obama as more likable but thought Romney’s
center-right views were closer to their own.
“The middle really and truly is up for grabs,” said Lanae Erickson,
deputy social policy and politics director at Third Way. She noted independents went for Democrats in 2008 and switched to
Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections.
“They are looking for something and they really haven’t found it yet,”
Erickson said. “We have a lot of people who are really swinging around, and the ones who have made up their minds are
split.”
The combination of Romney’s weaknesses and Obama’s vulnerabilities also make it likely each camp will spend
heavily on negative advertising designed to tear down its opponent.
Analysts say that between the campaigns and the
independent “Super PACs” that support them, spending in the presidential race is likely to total well over $1.5
billion.
Both sides have begun the onslaught, with Obama and his Democratic allies portraying Romney as wealthy and
out of touch with typical Americans, while Romney attacks Obama as a big-government liberal.
Republican pollster Whit
Ayres said it was crucial to Obama’s hopes for victory to keep the election from becoming a referendum on his
performance.
“Barack Obama could not win a referendum on his record today,” Ayres said. Democrats “have decided their
only route to re-election is to so thoroughly trash Mitt Romney as to make him an unacceptable alternative.”
Romney is
familiar with that tactic: His most significant victories in the state-by-state primary process came after his campaign and a
pro-Romney PAC put out a barrage of ads attacking Romney’s rivals.
On the economy, Obama argues that his policies
prevented broad chaos, steadied the nation’s banking and financial system and rescued Detroit’s auto
industry.
Romney focuses on the slow recovery, growing budget deficits and what he says is an explosion in government
regulation and overreach, climaxed by the unpopular healthcare overhaul.
In the end, analysts say, the election could
turn less on economic indicators and more on how optimistic voters feel about the future.
“What will matter in
November is whether people think their lives will be better off with four years of Mitt Romney or four more years of Barack
Obama,” Brown said. “Right now, it’s a jump ball.”
(Editing by David Lindsey and Peter Cooney)