Generic Republican Candidate 46%, Obama 44%

For the third week in a row, a generic Republican candidate leads President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election matchup. 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds a generic GOP candidate earns support from 46% of Likely U.S. Voters, while the president picks up 44% of the vote.  Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and another eight percent (8%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Last week, the Republican held a 45% to 42% advantage over the president.  Prior to the latest findings, support for both Obama and a generic Republican have remained in the narrow range of 42% to 45% in weekly surveys since the beginning of May. Rasmussen Reports will provide new data on this generic matchup each week until the field of prospective Republican nominees narrows to a few serious contenders.

Nearly one-in-three voters do not like the way the 2012 presidential race is shaping up for now in the two major political parties. Given a choice between the incumbent and one of the potential Republican presidential candidates, 30% think 2012 would be a good year to consider electing a third-party candidate.

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The survey of 4,000 Likely Voters was conducted on June 6-12, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.