Rep. Paul Ryan boosts Mitt Romney to a 1-point lead in a new survey of swing states.
The poll, from bipartisan firm Purple Strategies, combined survey of voters of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. The Romney-Ryan ticket leads Obama-Biden 47 percent to 46 percent overall.
Romney’s overall favorability has ticked up, from 41 percent a month ago to 45 percent now. But his unfavorable rating only dropped a point, from 49 percent to 48 percent. The boost for Romney may also be due to fact that President Obama’s approval rating dropped off slightly — 43 percent of swing-state voters approve of the president’s job perforance, while 51 percent disapprove. In July, the Purple Poll found a 46 approve-49 disapprove split.
“The Romney-Ryan ticket is fueled by an 11-point advantage among independents,” pollsters wrote in their analysis. “This represents an increase from July, when Romney held a 5-point margin over Obama among that key group.”
While Ryan has improved the Republican ticket within the overall swing state picture, his impact isn’t as clear in the most crucial places:
Romney has seen the largest gain in Ohio, a state we have seen bounce between the campaigns over the last few months. Today, the GOP ticket leads by 2 points (46% to 44%), compared to July when President Obama led the state 48% to 45%). Romney also gained ground in Virginia - today, he and Paul Ryan hold a 3- point advantage in the race (48% to 45%), while Romney trailed by 2 points in July.However, President Obama has seen improvements in Colorado in Florida. In Colorado, the Obama-Biden ticket now leads 49% to 46%, an increase from a 1-point lead in July. In Florida, the Democratic ticket trails by just 1 point (48% to 47%), compared to a 3 point deficit in July.
The PollTracker Average of Ohio still shows a lead for President Obama, who has led nearly every poll of the state since early June, all before the selection of Ryan.
Ryan receives the highest favorability ratings among all the candidates: 45 favorable to 39 percent unfavorable. Obama, Romney and Vice President Joe Biden all had higher unfavorable ratings than favorable ratings in the poll. But some of Ryan’s specific policy positions could drag him down.
“The Romney-Ryan ticket has a significant disadvantage on Medicare,” the pollsters wrote. “Asked which of the two tickets is more likely to protect Medicare, Purple State
voters choose Obama-Biden by an 8-point margin (48% to 40%). On that issue, the
Democratic ticket holds a 2-point advantage among independents, 43% to 41%.”
“While the inclusion of Paul Ryan has provided positive movement for the ticket
overall, a debate about Medicare reform appears likely to harm the GOP ticket in the
longer term,” the pollsters wrote.
The Purple Poll used 1,000 automated interviews with likely voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin conducted Aug. 13-14, and has a sampling error of 3.1 percent. There is an additional oversample of 600 likely voters each in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia, with a sampling error of 4 percent.
Kyle Leighton
Kyle is the Editor of TPM Media’s PollTracker. He graduated from Beloit College (WI) and began working in politics before getting an M.A. in magazine journalism from New York University, where he interned at TPM and the website of The New Yorker.
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