Presidential Polls 2012: Obama Closes Gap, Ties With Romney
President Barack Obama has closed the gap between himself and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney in nationwide polls, and he stands to gain even more of an advantage as poll numbers effected by the second presidential debate become available.
National polling firm Rasmussen's daily poll update shows the two candidates in a dead heat in the race for the White House, with both Obama and Romney getting support from 48 percent of voters polled. Of the remaining respondents, 2 percent are undecided and 1 percent supports a different candidate.
Friday's poll numbers represent a bump for Obama, who had been trailing Romney by one to two points over the last several days, according to Rasmussen data.
Political pundits anticipate Obama will see a larger increase in the poll numbers based on his performance in the second presidential debate. After being bombarded with negative criticism from the first debate, when Obama was seen as listless and unenergetic, the president returned to his rhetorical form in full force during his clash with Romney this week.
But the Rasmussen national poll has not yet incorporated opinions from voters who saw the debate, as the polling firm's survey methodology takes several days to catch up with recent events.
"These updates are based upon nightly polling and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, roughly two-thirds of the interviews for today's update were completed before Tuesday night's presidential debate," Rasmussen explained. "Saturday morning will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the second debate."
Though Rasmussen's poll shows a tie between the candidates, an average of all national polls as analyzed by Real Clear Politics still shows Romney ahead of Obama by one percentage point. According to that poll, the GOP candidate has support from 47.7 percent of voters surveyed, while Obama is behind with 46.7 percent.
