Obama Earns a Slim Lead Over Romney in Recent Poll

By: Victor Trammell

In a recent Reuter/Ipsos poll, President Obama  was favored over Republican challenger Mitt Romney by five percentage points. This is down from a high of seven percentage points in a previous poll, which was taken directly after the Democratic National Convention.

 Obama led the former Massachusetts governor by 48 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in the online poll conducted September 12-17. There are just 50 days left until the unpcoming presidential election. In a similar poll taken last Thursday, he led by 48 percent to 41 percent.

“My takeaway is that it’s pretty decent news for Obama that his bump is sustaining so long and he may be turning the post-convention bump into a lead,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.

Americans also gave a small edge to Obama on the hot topics of jobs and the economy, as they feel less jittery about economic conditions. Thirty-seven percent of registered voters believe that Obama has a better plan for the economy than Romney. However, there was only a three point margin of victory in that category.

On the issue of the federal government’s deficit problem, pollsters favored Romney over Obama by a margin of five percentage points (34% to 29%).  However, on the issues of health care, taxes, social security, and Medicare Obama was favored by wider margin to handle them better.

The authenticity of the Reuters/Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. This poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points for all pollsters. There were 591 likely voters surveyed for this particular poll.