Mitt Romney’s decisive debate victory has changed the direction of the presidential race. The unthinkable has happened – the president lost and lost badly – and Romney has moved ahead in most polls and is closing rapidly where he needs to. Before the debate, I questioned whether President Obama really had an “A-Game” when it comes to debating; if he has one, he certainly didn’t bring it that night. It may have (emphasize “may have”) cost him the election.
With over three weeks until the election, lest we get ahead of ourselves, you can bet that Team Obama will not go quietly and perhaps not go at all. But today, at this moment, Obama is behind the eight ball. The RealClearPolitics national average has Romney leading by a full one percent as you can see below. That has not happened before. Rasmussen has Romney at +1. And the Pew poll out yesterday has Romney ahead by +4 for the first time.
As good as these numbers are, they do not nearly tell the whole story. The internals of the unskewed Pew poll above are stunning. Romney leads on all major issues within the poll, but the real killer for Obama is the shift among women. Obama recently led by +18 with women; it is now tied at 47-47. And Romney now attracts 78% support from Independents, a 13-point shift in his favor since the debate.
Pollsters and pundits everywhere are stunned. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that Obama’s support is soft. Very soft. Now that voters see Romney as the “credible alternative” we mentioned last week, they seem to be either turning to Romney or at least taking a step back from Obama.
Remember, Obama spent $100-$200 million this summer attacking Romney as an out-of-touch, mega-rich guy who wants to cut taxes for the ultra-rich, raise taxes on the middle-class, didn’t pay his income taxes and outsourced lots of jobs in his days at Bain Capital. They even hinted that Romney might be a felon.
Spencer and I have maintained all along that Romney merely needed to establish that he is not that guy portrayed in all of the Obama ads. Romney not only accomplished that goal of being the credible alternative, he hit the ball out of the park in the debate and showed Obama to be weak and misguided. It helped that a record 70+ million viewers tuned in to the debate.
The key state polls are also trending strongly toward Romney. In the Rasmussen survey of 11 battleground states (CO, FL, NC, MI, NH, VA, OH, IA, NV, WI and PA), Romney now leads 49%-47%. This is a six-point swing toward Romney since the debate. Of those surveyed, 46% said they are certain to vote for Romney, whereas only 40% said they were certain to vote for Obama. Again, this shows that Obama’s support is soft.
Particularly troubling for the Obama camp are NV, WI, MI and PA. These were all states that most everyone believed were either solid blue or strongly leaning for Obama. But even these states are now “in-play.”
NV (6 Electoral Votes) is now tied 47-47. The Las Vegas Review-Journal just endorsed Romney for President; the paper endorsed Obama in 2008. WI (10 EV) is now favoring Obama by just a thin two points, 47-49. Romney is only three points down in MI (16 EV) at 48-45. But PA is clearly the most astounding shift; Romney now trails by only three, 40-43, with a large block of voters still undecided; Obama won PA by 10 in 2008.
This has sparked nothing short of panic within the Obama camp. There are now rumblings that a significant shake-up is in progress at the Chicago headquarters. This is never a good sign. Wasn’t the Romney campaign supposed to be in disarray? That’s what the Obama camp claimed before the debate stunner. Not now!
Thursday’s Veep debate should be fun. I now expect the viewership for that debate to be at record levels as was the first presidential debate. Paul Ryan will likely seem a perfectly adequate VP, which is all he has to do. If the Obama camp is looking for Biden to reverse their slide, they may be disappointed. You can bet that Joe’s marching orders are very simple. Be energized, be respectful, and above all NO GAFFES. Sounds easy, but this is Joe Biden we are talking about. You just know it will be interesting.
No one, not even conservatives, thought we would see such a striking turnaround in just a week. But Romney (and Obama) made it happen. What a difference a week makes! But as Yogi Berra once famously said, “It ain’t over til it’s over.”
Neither candidate is being honest about what is needed to solve our economic problems, probably because the American people will not vote for it. In some cases it also offends important support groups. The problem is that neither candidate will thus inherit a mandate to make important changes. The American people will probably vote for Romney because Obama has been a failure and then toss Romney out for the same reason.