Obama 39%, Paul 38%

Obama 39%, Paul 38%

The president and the maverick are running almost dead even in a hypothetical 2012 election matchup.

Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul earns 38% of the vote to President Obama’s 39% in the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters. Fourteen percent (14%) like some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) remain undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Just a month ago, Obama posted a 41% to 37% lead over Paul, who ran second to Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann in the recent high-profile Ames Straw Poll in Iowa.

Paul, whose long run afoul of the GOP establishment with his libertarian policy prescriptions, picks up 61% of the Republican vote, while 78% of Democrats fall in behind the president. Voters not affiliated with either of the major political parties prefer the longtime congressman by 10 points – 43% to 33%.

But Paul still has a long haul among voters in his own party. He ran fourth last week in Rasmussen Reports’ most recent survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters with nine percent (9%) support. Texas Governor Rick Perry, the new face in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, has jumped to a double-digit lead over Mitt Romney and Bachmann with the other announced candidates trailing even further behind.

In that same survey, 43% of likely primary voters expressed a favorable opinion of Paul, while slightly more (45%) registered an unfavorable view of him. This included 15% with a Very Favorable regard for Paul, who ran unsuccessfully for the party’s presidential nomination in 2008, and 14% with a Very Unfavorable one.

Still, Paul, popular with many in the Tea Party movement, runs better against the incumbent than another Tea Party favorite, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.Obama leads Palin 50% to 33% among all likely voters, making her the only potential GOP candidate to date against whom the president’s support has risen out of the 40s.

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The match-up surveys of 1,000 Likely Voters were conducted August 15-16, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error for the surveys is +/- 3% with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Obama continues to trail a generic Republican candidate in a hypothetical 2012 matchup.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Tea Party members support Paul. Fifty-one percent (51%) of those who are not members of the grass roots smaller government movement opt for the president.

Paul leads Obama by 11 points among male voters but loses female voters to the incumbent by a similar margin. Voters under 30 prefer the president, while Paul edges the incumbent in all other age groups.

The president leads among voters who earn $60,000 or less a year, while the GOP candidate is ahead among those who make more.

Eighty-eight percent (88%) of the Political Class favor Obama. A plurality (46%) of Mainstream voters support Paul.

Paul has long been a critic of the Federal Reserve Board, and Americans overwhelmingly agree with his call for auditing the Fed.

He also breaks sharply with other GOP candidates by calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of all voters nationwide now want the troops to come home from Afghanistan either immediately or within a year.

Link:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/obama_39_paul_38