Presidential Polls 2012: Romney Holds On To Three-Point Lead
With just more than a week before Election Day, President Barack Obama still has not been able to close the gap between himself and Mitt Romney in nationwide polls.
Though Obama had been enjoying a lead heading into the first presidential debate on Oct. 3, his lackluster performance cost him, and the incumbent has trailed behind his Republican challenger ever since.
According to the latest data from national polling firm Rasmussen, Romney has support from 50 percent of the registered voters surveyed. Obama lags behind by three percentage points with support from 47 percent. Of the remaining respondents, 2 percent plan to vote for a different, third party candidate, and another 2 percent are still undecided about how they will cast their vote Nov. 6.
Romney was averaging a two-point lead in the polls leading up to the final presidential debate this week, an advantage he has been enjoying since Obama gave up his own two-point lead after the very first presidential debate.
But Rasmussen's analysis of its tracking data says that the standings may change once the pollsters have time to incorporate only interviews conducted after the final presidential debate and throw out all data collected before that.
"These updates are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, approximately one-third of the interviews for today's update were completed before the end of Monday night's presidential debate. Tomorrow morning (Friday) will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the final debate," the site said.
In a Real Clear Politics average of all nationwide presidential polls, Romney is still in the lead, but by a more narrow margin. According to that data, Romney has support from 47.9 percent of voters, giving him a 0.9-point edge over Obama, who is polling at 47 percent.
