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POLITICS

Generic Republican Candidate 46%, Obama 42%

A generic Republican candidate now holds a four-point lead over President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election matchup.  It's the fifth week in a row that the GOP candidate has been ahead and the widest gap between the candidates to date.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds a generic Republican candidate earns support from 46% of Likely U.S. Voters, while the president picks up 42% of the vote.  Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and nine percent (9%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Last week, the Republican held a 45% to 43% advantage. In weekly surveys since the beginning of May, support for Obama has ranged from 42% to 45%, while the Republican has earned 43% to 46% of the vote. 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. 

Republicans also hold a seven-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, June 26. Republicans have led on this ballot every week since June 2009.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. 

The survey of 3,500 Likely Voters was conducted on June 20-26, 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.

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