Pew: Obama 51 Romney 43

     To be sure, we should be a little careful about the polls. Gallup does show the President's bounce has dissipated now. Rasmussen does as well, though of course that tends to bias towards Romney.

     Still, both those polls are rolling averages and should be heeded. However, most polls seem to have good news for the President. Even the Gallup poll shows that he has closed the gap on the economy while bettering his approval rating. Indeed, what stands out especially is the improvement of his numbers on a likely voter basis.

     Before the convention even when Obama did well in certain polls-Bloomberg, Pew, CNN-it was mitigated by his numbers among likely voters being considerably lower than among registered voters. Since the convention this has not been the case. In Pew again we see little difference between the two:

    
      "The Pew Research Center gives Obama his biggest lead of the week, finding that he "holds a bigger September lead than the last three candidates who went on to win in November":

With the exception of jobs and the deficit, on which voter opinion is about evenly divided, Obama leads Romney on most key issues, notably healthcare, Medicare, and abortion.

And the survey, conducted amid an outbreak of violence in the Middle East and shortly after the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, shows that Obama has a wide edge when it comes to foreign affairs and national security. Far more voters see Obama as a strong leader and as the candidate voters believe would use good judgment in a crisis.

Voters also express more confidence in Obama than Romney to deal with foreign policy generally, as well as problems in the Middle East. …
Obama’s overall advantage – he leads 51% to 42% among registered voters – does not narrow significantly when looking only at those most likely to vote. Among 2,192 likely voters, Obama leads Romney, 51% to 43%.

     "So, in the last 24 hours we've seen a 5-point Obama lead from NBC/WSJ, a 1-point Obama lead from AP-GfK and this 8-point lead from Pew. While the top lines numbers vary from poll to poll, the consistent pattern is some edge for Obama on the overall ballot, plus a lead on most individual issues and a dead heat (or something like it) on the economy. If you consider the fundamental conditions of the 2012 cycle, the fact that Romney hasn't been able to establish a lead over Obama on economic issues is probably the most surprising stat of them all."

     http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/09/pew-obama-romney-136017.html?hp=r5