Romney Now Leads Obama Among Middle Income Voters

According to the latest Obama vs. Romney Gallup Presidential Poll.

Mitt Romney currently has a 49% to 45% edge over Barack Obama among middle-income voters, those whose annual household income is between $36,000 and $89,999. Romney has the same lead among upper-income voters, while Obama maintains a wide advantage among lower-income voters.

The results are based on Gallup Daily tracking of 2012 election preferences by demographic group, including more than 9,000 interviews with registered voters conducted between May 14 and June 3. During this period, Obama and Romney were tied at 46% among all registered voters.

Voting preferences by income group have been fairly well-established since Gallup began tracking the general election on April 11. Obama’s lead over Romney among low-income voters has ranged between 13 and 16 percentage points in each of the three-week rolling averages of the vote by demographic group that Gallup has reported since late April. Meanwhile, Romney’s edge among middle-income voters has been between four and seven points, and among upper-income voters, between four and six points.

Romney, the wealthy former head of Bain Capital, has slightly greater appeal to the highest-income voters in Gallup’s data, those making $180,000 or more in annual income. This group has shown a 53% to 42% preference for Romney since mid-April, compared with 50% to 45% for Romney among those earning between $90,000 and $179,999.

Again, this is good news for Mitt Romney and the Republican Party.

If Obama loses the middle income folks, he is not going to be re-elected.The fact is there is greater voter participation among middle income voters than lower income ones.

It appears that Obama’s appeal is based more upon race, than winning the economic argument of “sharing the wealth around.”

Obama’s large lead among low-income voters overall is due to two factors. First, as the prior table shows, lower-income nonwhites prefer Obama to Romney by a 68-point margin, compared with smaller 55-point and 52-point margins among middle- and upper-income nonwhites, respectively. At the same time, Romney has a smaller lead among lower-income white voters (10 points) than among middle- (19 points) or upper-income white voters (14 points).

Second, and perhaps more importantly, nonwhites fall disproportionately into the lower-income group. Nearly half of nonwhites, 49%, report annual household incomes of less than $36,000. And 38% of those in the lower-income group are nonwhite, compared with 22% of those in the middle-income group and 17% in the upper-income group.

But, most importantly, Mitt Romney is leading among middle income and independent voters, a key demographic.

Though Romney’s edge among middle-income voters is similar to his lead among upper-income voters, in certain subgroups of middle-income voters he performs especially well. That includes middle-income independent voters, who right now prefer Romney by an eight-point margin, 48% to 40%. Obama leads among lower-income independents, and the two are tied among upper-income independents.

All in all, a good poll for Mitt Romney early in the race.

No wonder the odds makers at InTrade.com have seen Obama crater in recent trading.