CNN Poll: Romney 50% – Obama 49% in Florida
(CNN) - With eight days to go until Election Day, a new survey indicates an extremely close race for Florida's 29 electoral votes.
According to a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday, 50% of likely voters in the Sunshine State say they are backing Republican nominee Mitt Romney, with 49% supporting President Barack Obama. The former Massachusetts governor's one point margin is well within the survey's sampling error.
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"The results are unchanged from a one-point margin for Romney in mid-October, except for each candidate gaining a percentage point and the number of truly undecided voters dwindling away to almost nothing," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
The survey indicates that there is a slightly larger pool of persuadable voters, often called "uncommitted voters" in this election cycle.
"Roughly five percent of Florida's likely voters say they are truly undecided or have a preference but have not completely made up their minds. Those are the voters in whose hands rests the outcome in the Sunshine State - and possibly the national outcome as well," adds Holland.
According to the poll, a large gender gap has re-opened in Florida, with 55% of men supporting Romney and 54% of women favoring Obama. Generational and income gaps appear as well, with Obama doing better among younger and lower-income voters and Romney ahead among those 50 and older and among those making more than $50,000 per year.
President George W. Bush won Florida in his 2004 re-election, but Obama narrowly captured the state in his 2008 victory over Sen. John McCain. This cycle Florida has once again been getting tons of attention during the general election, with the candidates making frequent visits to the Sunshine State. Romney held three rallies in the state on Saturday. The president was scheduled to headline a rally Monday morning in Orlando, but instead returned to Washington, D.C. to monitor federal emergency preparations for Hurricane Sandy.
The Obama and Romney campaigns are also spending big bucks on get-out-the-vote efforts and to run television commercials in the state. The two presidential campaigns, the party committees, and the super PACs and other independent groups supporting the candidates, have shelled out more than $130 million to run ads on broadcast TV in Florida since April 10, the unofficial start of the general election. That's according to data provided to its clients by Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), which tracks campaign advertising.
Political junkies will recall that Ralph Nader's minor-party candidacy in 2000 is widely credited with taking enough votes from Al Gore to allow George W. Bush to eventually claim the state. Could that happen again this year?
It's tough to tell, but it is intriguing to note that when three minor party candidates are included in a separate horse race question, a 50%-49% margin for Romney becomes a 48%-48% tie, with Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green party candidate Jill Stein claiming one percent apiece and Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode coming in with less than one-half of one percent.
"Statistically, there is no difference between 50%-to-49% and 48%-to-48%, but it does illustrate the potential effect of the minor-party candidates in this extremely close race," adds Holland, who also warns that "close elections are inherently unpredictable - and elections in which a single percentage point separates the two candidates are even tougher, if not impossible, to forecast."
The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International, from October 25-28 (entirely after the final presidential debate), with 1,010 adults, including 914 registered voters and 770 likely voters, questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error for likely voters is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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It would be really funny if Gary Johnson won enough that might have gone to Romney that Obama wins FL. I would expect if that happens for Romney and surrogates to be claiming fraud and other things.
CNN there are other people running for the presidency in case you forgot. Add them and tell us how Romney fair when they are in the mix. NO WHERE
President Obama is a trusted leader
S.B. Stein E.B. NJ
It would be really funny if Gary Johnson won enough that might have gone to Romney that Obama wins FL
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Dope smokers that want it legalized vote for Johnson. Those are DEMOCRATS!
We have to realize that many of those polls on Florida do not include a high amount of the spanish speaking only latinos. If they did, you can add ABOUT 5% more than what you see. Thats what all the spanish organizations are saying. Since Latinos take about 17% of Florida.
Same thing happened to Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada. Reid was behind 4% in polls to Sharron Angle right before the election day. Then after the race, Reid won by a whopping 10%. Thats because Nevada is congested with Latinos.
Those polls only take surveys of English speaking people only. So with the many latinos that do NOT speak english, the Latinos organization take their surveys. And they are usually 7 out of 10 for Obama.
The national poll of latino only taken by the spanish companies, have Obama at 70-25.. With calculations, you can add about 4% to the national polls. Obama will win this.
How could this race possibly be tied in FL? What is the matter with the Hanging Chad people??
Wait, what?
I had sort of been writing off Florida already, but this poll along with underrepresentation of minorities in polling and the insane GET OUT THE VOTE movement Obama has in Florida that already had people sleeping in tents to vote early for him are making me wonder...
I voted for Obama I will not reward my vote to the republican party for obstruction and praying for failure to fix the things they caused.
They haven't been looking at who voted on early voting Sat/Sun. Lines hours long and very few voting for Romney in Palm Beach County. The African American's are energized along with women, Jewish voters and the youth.
This poll is misleading for two reasons:
1. You don't have to do hypothetical inclusion models. All of those people are on the ballot. So, the race is tied 48/48.
2. You show Obama up 7 in registered voters? The average shows a 2.3% GOP lean for "likely" not 7 points.
Thank goodness people are waking up and starting to think about the issues instead of the banter.
Gary Johnson will get some votes in Florida...no doubt.
Once people see Romney speaking in a dry campaign headquarters hundred of miles away from Sandy attempting to look presidential, while Obama is doing his job in rain-lashed Washington DC, directing the relief efforts ( that no doubt the House GOP will try to deny funding to), people will see why Obama is the president and Romney is a joke.
So excited to have an honest president that actually has the experience needed for this job! ROMNEY 2012
S.B. Stein E.B. NJ
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So true! It's not as if they'd ever send it to the Supreme Court to decide or anything...
...Or if he took enough away from Obama and Romney won.
Come on Fl. vote OBAMA! WE need you! America needs you to make the right choice. OBAMA 2012.
If all of you old timers in FL vote away my Social Security and Medicare simply because the GOP skipped your age group to pander to your votes, there will be payback. My generation will spend night and day to insure taht you all suffer the same fate. It will make Logans Run look like a senior center. Be warned seniors. You got yours. I want waht I paid for and if you put this moron in the white house its YOUR fault.
Florida early voting had some huge lines.
And they weren't lining up for Mr. Flip-Flopper.
.
With the storm over the east coast, this could affect Robme's base voter turnout.
That mass amount of metal from Lincoln Town cars and Buick LeSabres in the parking lot, coupled with all those walkers. could prove to be a lightning hazard!
Wow!! I didn't realize that Obama was doing so well in Florida!! There is a good chance he could win this state. He really has the get-out-the vote machine. Yay Obama!! Keep pushing.
Go Romney! The intelligent half of this country knows Obama has been a failure, and Romney can save this country from financial ruin. One has to just (1) look at the disastrous last four years, and know that things are not getting better and (2) look at Obama's campaign message about abortion, women's reproductive issues, etc. Seriously? With everything going on in this country, your campaign message is birth control and Planned Parenthood???
Mitt Romney has timed perfectly the momentum needed to win this election. Or maybe it is just that as the election nears, more Americans are really paying attention. Or maybe Obama/ Biden 2012 didn't consider the impact of live debates when they chose their strategy of attack ads and class warfare scare tactics. Maybe Americans just like having a plan.
CNN please report that you oversample Democrats anywhere from 4-6% in your polls.
That should be factored into these results.
Here we go again, the same old Republican B.S. that took place in 2000. Romney can't win Ohio, so they are going to try to steal Florida, again.
As a White Spaniard woman living in the USA for 20 yrs I wanted to vote for Mitt Romney
but when I found out he still supports Murdock on his disgusting comment about
"Rape was part of God's plan" I WILL NOT VOTE FOR him! No Mitt....rape
is not something that would ever become a part of God's plan.
Also he got caught on that HUG LIE when he said that Obama thought the attack was due to a demonstration. He went at it at both Obama and the CNN moderator. Even when it was pointed to him by the moderator that he was wrong he still would not shut down and acted lie a bully. Nothing could be done for the embassy attack. They were heavily armed, with no time to deploy and ZERO idea of the force present. The ambassador and his staff at the embassy never "asked" for help, and sadly by the time anything could had been done they were dead with an attack already out of control and far away from the USA or any USA military help. We can’t just barged into another nation and send our troops. Imagine China sending troops to their embassy in Washington DC. Do you think the USA would allow any of that?
Romney would had sent our wonderful forces to die in vain like Black Hawk down debacle.
Iran is strongly funding Al Qaeda, and BIG CHINA is helping all of them too. NO an easy walkway and you must act carefully instead of a cowboy Marshall.
Also you NEVER said that you are right and that you numbers ad up before you even run a nation. HE is full of lies and I hate liars. Which reminds me of Bush when he lied to us and the world re Iraq. Also Mitt said that it was going to take 8-10 yrs for hi to balance the budget. Well Obama said the same thing and he has been president less than 4 years. But also I love how much Romney was agreeing with Obama during the last debate. For a second I thought that he would get up, embrace and kiss Obama and tell him, “You are the big man and you got my vote.”
Finally I realized that I dont want another Rep running our nation. And yes BUSH name MUST come up. He ruined our nation's economic and the worlds as well with his crazy and unjust war in Iraq a nation that had ZERO WMD, no ties to OBL or 911. In the process Bush and Cheney nuked over 200,000 innocent BABIES, women and men there and over 15K of our GIS got killed and over 50,000 maimed for life. Why are these two war crimes leaders, and their pals, running around free and Ca$hing in? THey all belong in jail.
Also Obama got Osama something that Bush and Cheney failed to do since they were busy attacking the wrong country and killing lots of innocent folks. So far Obama has kept our nation safe.
Obama got a mess of an economic and the moral of the nation was way below par. He said it many times and other folks too including Reps that it would take more than two terms to bring the USA back to what it was when Clinton was running the nation. Obama inherited a debacle of a nation with an infrastructure in the ground. And many time it has been clear that when ever he wants to improve or change something that hasn't work at all specially when the Reps in Congress and the Senate go against him.
MY VOTE IS FOR OBAMA!!