President Obama’s competence might be a major campaign issue, but a new Gallup poll finds that the president has a huge lead over Mitt Romney in the category of being likeable.
“Likability is keeping Obama in the game at this point,” Mark McKinnon, a top strategist for former President George W. Bush, told the Washington Post. “Romney hasn’t really revealed much of his personal story or his personality, so he’s got a lot more potential to grow.”
The USA Today-Gallup survey found that 60 percent of respondents said that Obama was likeable compared with 30 percent for Romney. Gallup says Obama’s likeability factor accounts for his GOP challenger’s inability to take a consistent lead despite the sour economy and high unemployment.
The most recent Gallup poll found Obama with a slight 46-45 percent lead over Romney in terms of who would win were the election to be held today.
“Obama has a strength in terms of his personality,” said Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport. “The one thing in this presidential race about President Obama is that Americans like the guy – maybe they don’t know enough about Romney yet to like him – and also they think that Obama has empathy and understands the problems of the average American.”
This is keeping Obama ahead of Romney overall, according to Newport.
Even so, Romney leads Obama on issues such as who would do a better job tackling the deficit, the economy and creating jobs.
Romney still has time between now and Election Day to improve his numbers because likeability is all that is keeping Obama in the race at this point. Some analysts say that next month’s Republican National Convention could give Romney a chance to introduce Americans to his more personal side, which could help him in the polls.
About John Rossomando
I like President Obama, but not for 2nd term as President, we need a strong leader, not just likeble.
He dons the robes of the everyday man. We have seen him revert to regular guy talk when feeling confident. When he’s got some trepidations he becomes very arrogant and tends to lecture. When ever he does step outside of that regular guy mode the media tends not to broadcast that side. The bias in the media will continue to favor the President, and show Mr. Romney as aloof and out of touch. What would you expect? I hope when the debates come Mr. Romney will show his true self.
You keep telling yourself that it’s a “popularity contest”. We “LIKE” Obama because he is a good, honest man who is working for the good of the common people, not a elitist tax evader millionaire outsourcer like Mitt Witt. So he couldn’t fix things in 4 years after 8 years of a republican free for all of greed and incompetence. I never expected that, but he is moving us in the right direction. The only one the mainstream media is favoring is Mittens, and that’s because they want to try to inject some excitement into this election, which is going to be a landslide for Obama. Now Mitt’s advisors are cutting him off from the press so he doesn’t make too many more obnoxious stupid comments during his “tour” … gee, his campaign is becoming more and more like the GW administration … and we all know how that went! Bring on Cheney for VP! LOL!