Republican Mitt Romney holds a slim edge over President Obama in a head-to-head matchup, a Fox News poll released Thursday shows. In addition, the poll finds the president’s job rating has dropped to its lowest point of the year.

In a presidential matchup, Romney tops Obama by 46-44 percent if the election were today. 

As with every Romney-Obama matchup in the past six months, the race is so tight that it is within the poll’s margin of sampling error. This, however, is only the second time the Fox News poll shows Romney on top. The first time was November 2011, when he was also up by 2 percentage points.

The poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday. On Tuesday, Rick Santorum suspended his presidential bid — giving Romney a clear path to the Republican nomination. 

More Republicans (42 percent) than Democrats (32 percent) or independents (34 percent) say they are “extremely” interested in the upcoming presidential election.

Even so, the strength of party support in the matchup is dead even: 85 percent of Democrats back Obama and 85 percent of Republican back Romney.

Among the highly sought after group of independents, the poll found 43 percent back Romney and 37 percent Obama. Nearly one in four independent voters (21 percent) is undecided or won’t vote for either of the major party candidates.  Last month, independents split evenly between Obama and Romney at 40 percent each. In February, Romney had a 9-point advantage. 

The poll shows the gender gap may not solely be a problem for the Republican candidate. Women are more likely to back Obama (by 49-41 percent), while men are even more likely to give their support to Romney (by 52-38 percent). The 2008 Fox News national exit poll showed women voted for Obama over Republican John McCain by 13 percentage points (56-43 percent). Historically, exit poll results show women have consistently backed the Democrat over the Republican in presidential elections.

Now that Mitt Romney has clinched the Republican nomination, it is game on.

The Hilary Rosen flap may indeed hurt Obama enough that his female support may wane and any gender gap to his advantage may narrow.

Stay tuned…

Barack Obama’s opened up a 13 point lead on Mitt Romney in Colorado at 53-40. He’s gained 11 points in the state since December when he led just 47-45.

The formula for Obama’s gains is the same in Colorado as it is everywhere. He’s getting more popular and Romney’s getting less popular. In December only 45% of voters approved of the job Obama was doing to 50% who disapproved. Now he’s on positive ground with 50% giving him good marks to 47% who think he’s doing a poor job. The main thing that’s changed is Democrats really rallying around him. In December he was at 76/18 with them, but now it’s 89/8. The party is getting a lot more unified as the election comes closer.

Romney’s headed in the other direction. His net favorability has gone from -18 (35/53) to an even worse -29 (31/60). Romney had a healthy amount of appeal to Democrats earlier with 20% viewing him favorably but that’s now down to 11%. And he’s extremely unpopular with independents at 25/65.

In the head to head between them Obama leads Romney by 26 points with independents at 57-31. And Romney’s now getting just 7% of the Democratic vote, down from 14% on our December poll. This is the trend we’re seeing in most states- the primary campaign has caused much of Romney’s crossover support to evaporate and it’s also making him lose ground with independents.
Romney’s problem with women shows itself in a major way in Colorado. He’s down by 24 points with them at 58-34. With men the race is actually tied. Obama’s also up by an astounding 72-17 margin with voters under 30 in the state, a pretty good sign of where Colorado is headed politically.

I am not surprised and never considered Colorado a serious key battleground state. The only contested races appear to be in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada and Florida.

Mitt Romney will be an uninspired Republican nominee, but has a chance in those five states. A good media campaign and ground operation to turn out voters might lead him to a victory.

Otherwise, it will be on to 2016 for the GOP and Tea Party.

If asked to choose between them today, 49% of U.S. registered voters say they would vote for Barack Obama for president, while 45% would choose likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney. While Obama’s advantage is not statistically significant, it is the largest he has had over Romney in Gallup polling to date.

Obama has a larger, significant lead, 51% to 43%, over Rick Santorum, Romney’s chief rival for the Republican nomination, in the March 25-26 USA Today/Gallup poll. In mid-February, when Santorum led as national Republicans’ choice for the nomination, he and Obama were tied.

Obama leads both Romney and Santorum among independent voters, faring slightly better against Santorum than he does against Romney. Romney and Santorum currently fare about equally well among Republican voters.

National polls don’t mean much as I have said over and over because of big urban areas that are predominantly Democratic. Also, registered voters rather than likely voters will skew results as well.

Let’s look at Gallup’s key battleground states poll.

Obama has a 51% to 42% lead over Romney in USA Today/Gallup polling of registered voters in 12 key swing states, conducted March 20-26. This is the first time in five measurements that Obama has held an advantage over Romney in those states.

Obama also leads Santorum in the swing states, by 52% to 41%.

What does this all mean?

Momentum has shifted towards President Obama because Americans perceive the economy getting a bit better. Also, the contraception flap with Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum has sullied the GOP national brand and Romney is receiving the fall out with women voters and independents.

You see, most Americans are not that tuned into what the real issues are and when Jon Stewart and Jay Leno start the mocking, perceptions will shift – especially with this no win issue. But, will they shift in key battleground states?

The key battleground state poll, however, is not an accurate portrayal. There are at this point of the campaign really only six states in play: Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

Romney will need to run the table with these states in order to win the Presidency.