President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama Has the Key Battleground State Blues

As I have been writing about for many weeks now, President Obama is NOT polling well in the key battleground states that the Republicans desperately need to beat him in the 2012 Presidential race.

President Obama’s job approval rating in the latest national polls has been in the danger zone, ranging from 42 percent (Gallup) to 47 percent (ABC News/Washington Post), with every survey showing him with higher unfavorables than favorables.  Needless to say, it’s not a good place for a president to be, especially since his numbers have worsened over the past two months.

The race for president isn’t a national contest. It’s a state-by-state battle to cobble an electoral vote majority. So while the national polls are useful in gauging the president’s popularity, the more instructive numbers are those from the battlegrounds.

Those polls are even more ominous for the president: In every reputable battleground state poll conducted over the past month, Obama’s support is weak. In most of them, he trails Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.  For all the talk of a closely fought 2012 election, if Obama can’t turn around his fortunes in states such as Michigan and New Hampshire, next year’s presidential election could end up being a GOP landslide.

Take Ohio, a perennial battleground in which Obama has campaigned more than in any other state (outside of the D.C. metropolitan region). Fifty percent of Ohio voters now disapprove of his job performance, compared with 46 percent who approve, according to a Quinnipiac poll conducted from July 12-18. 

Among Buckeye State independents, only 40 percent believe that Obama should be reelected, and 42 percent approve of his job performance. Against Romney, Obama leads 45 percent to 41 percent—well below the 50 percent comfort zone for an incumbent.

Read the rest of the piece.

Ohio, for now, is the BEST state for President Obama. In every other key battleground state, he is either behind Mitt Romney or tied with him. With the glow of the Osama Bin Laden death now fully expired, watch the polls after Labor Day. If Obama sinks further say in Virginia and/or Florida and Ohio swings for the GOP, the Republicans may be looking for quite a victory.

And, this is why the House GOP needs to clear the debt-limit debate out of the way as soon as today.