First of all, I promise not to write a poll story every day (as one easily could). But after yesterday's post on the Gallup tracking poll (showing Romney leading by a statistically insignificant 47-45), the new poll just out by Pew (Obama by 49-45, which is on the edge of statistical significance) seems worth mentioning. I'll confess that Gallup and Pew are the two polling organizations for which I have developed the most respect over the years, so I generally give their polls more notice.
A month ago, Pew found Obama with an 11-point lead, so the new numbers certainly show a tightening of the race. There are still relatively fresh polls (like this one by CNN) that show Obama with a big lead.
Pews says: "Obama continues to owe his lead to support from women, college graduates, blacks, Latinos and lower income voters – all of whom support him over Romney by double-digits."
On the issue front, Pew finds that Obama holds double-digit advantages among voters who rate highly the issues of the environment (Obama leads among this group by 39 points), education (Obama +22), birth control (+19) and health care (+15). Romney has large leads among those highly rate the importance of the budget deficit (+19) and Iran (+14).
Obama leads among women by 13 percentage points; Romney leads among men by 6.
One impressive gap between Dems and Repubs is how much they say they care about environmental issues. Among Dems, 74 percent say considerations of the environment will be very important in their voting preference. Among Repubs, just 26 percent say that. This dwarfs the comparable gaps on all other issues in the poll.