President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Governor Mitt Romney are “neck-and-neck” according to Rasmussen Reports’ first poll of the 2012 presidential race in Colorado. That comes on the heels of news that Romney is closing the gender gap nationally. According to The Hill’s Briefing Room Obama’s animal magnetism is wearing thin with many women.
The post cites the USA Today/Gallup poll of 12 swing states showing that the president’s lead among women fell from 18 percentage points in April to 12 percentage points in May. Republican strategist and pollster, Whit Ayers explains:
“The number one issue among women is the sorry state of the economy and the fragile state of our jobs. Mitt Romney has done an increasingly better job of paving a contrasting vision to Obama of a brighter economic future.”
This trend surfaces in poll after poll, including the latest ABC-Washington Post poll, which shows that while 44 percent of women still have a negative view of Romney, 40 percent now have a favorable view of him, which represents a whopping 21-point swing from April.
This huge swing in the female vote is what some strategists have pointed to when explaining Romney’s recent popularity in the polls.
And it's likely to continue. With Obama's comment today that "the private sector is doing fine" female voters across the fruited plains must be wondering what the hell the man in the White House is thinking.
With unemployment rising last month, female voters are likely to increase their swing towards Romney — the candidate who possesses the "sterling business record" according to Bill Clinton — not the candidate who doesn't know the price of gas, so to speak.