Election 2012: Generic Republican 47%, Obama 42%
A generic Republican candidate holds a five-point advantage over President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up for the week ending Sunday, September 11. This is the 10th week in a row the Republican has led the incumbent.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds the generic Republican earning 47% support, while the president picks up 42% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Last week, the generic Republican earned the highest level of support to date against Obama, 49% to 41%. Since weekly tracking began in early May, the Republican has earned 43% to 49% support, while the president has picked up 40% to 45% 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.
The two Republican front-runners in the race, Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, both lead the president for the first time this year. Romney holds a 43% to 40% advantage over Obama, while Perry edges the incumbent 44% to 41%. Given the margin of error, the two races are essentially tied. The president leads all other GOP hopefuls.
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The survey of 3,500 Likely Voters was conducted September 5-11, 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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