Romney’s slide among independents continues

[ProSense]

Romney’s slide among independents continues

By Greg Sargent

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Today’s new Pew poll offers another installment. The topline is striking enough — it finds that Santorum is surging among Tea Partyers and conservatives, again suggesting that they just can’t come to terms with Romney as the nominee.

But look, Romney is still likely to get the nomination, anyway. Which is why this slide among independents is also extremely noteworthy:

A month ago, 40% of independents said they would back Obama over Romney — today 51% say they would, while the number expressing support for Romney has slipped from 50% to 42%.

Over the course of the campaign, Romney’s image among independent voters has suffered substantially. Most notably, the number who believe he is honest and trustworthy has fallen from 53% to 41%, while the number who say he is not has risen from 32% to 45%.

And even on his qualifications for the office — omney’s strong suit — he has lost ground among independents. In November, a 58% majority of independents said Romney was well-qualified to be president, while just 31% said he was not. Today, 48% say he is well qualified, while 41% say he is not.

In November, Romney was beating Obama among these voters, 53-41. Now those numbers are upside down: Obama is beating Romney among them, 51-42. That’s a net 19 point net swing of independents in Obama’s direction in three months.

This comes after a recent NBC/WSJ poll found a 20 point spike in negative impressions of Romney among these voters. Democratic pollster Peter Hart’s diagnosis continues to ring true:

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romneys-slide-among-independents-continues/2012/02/13/gIQAYYqGBR_blog.html

[dmallind]

1. Santorum amongst Indies? Surely worse still. If they are paying attention that is. nt

[ProSense]

2. Obama 54, Santorum 40 n/t

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. Romney needs to give a speech in which he says that he's a "severe independent" and says the word

"independent" twenty thousand times. He'll probably do that, too, and without a second thought, once he wins the nomination. We've only seen the warm of the flip flops to come from this guy, if he becomes the candidate in the general election.

[ProSense]

4. That would

be great, a wealth of Romneyspeak.