President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama Faces an Uphill Path to Re-Election in Key Battleground States

For President Obama, the path to a second term is going to be an uphill climb.

While Americans across the nation are downbeat about the economy and the future, a special USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that voters in a dozen key battleground states for the 2012 election are in an even deeper funk about their lives, Obama’s tenure and the nation’s politics.

One year before Election Day, the debut Swing States survey charts a narrower and more difficult course to victory for Obama than he navigated four years ago — and shows opportunities for Republicans in some states that have gone Democratic for decades.

Obama has “had some really good ideas … but he’s struggling with trying to get his ideas into place and dealing with Congress, and he hasn’t done a very good job with that,” Mary Jo Jones, 57, of Grand Rapids, Mich., said in a followup interview after being surveyed. She supported Obama in 2008 but would consider switching in 2012 to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, if Republicans nominate him. “He seems to be a pretty good businessman, and he might have some ideas to help us on the economy.”

Michigan, which has backed the Democratic candidate in the last five presidential elections, is among the 12 swing states likely to determine the outcome next year. The others are Florida, North Carolina and Virginia in the South; Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico in the Mountain West; Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin in the Midwest; and New Hampshire and Pennsylvania in the Northeast.

The American economy has been so poor in these states, for far too long. American voters are looking for action and I do not think they will be seeing it with Obama.

Watch the polling in these states. If all of them start to break against the President, he could be toast earlier rather than later.