Most Americans still expect Obama to win: poll
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E-mail Xinhua, August 28, 2012
As the Republican National Convention (RNC), which will nominate Mitt Romney as the party's presidential nominee, opened in a low-key ceremony Monday, a latest poll showed that most Americans still predict that President Barack Obama will win the race in November.
Fifty-eight Americans expect Obama to win the reelection on Nov. 6, up 2 percent from last survey in May, while 36 percent say Romney will win, unchanged from May, according to the USA Today/ Gallup poll conducted on Aug. 20-22.
This reflects that, despite the past three-month hard campaigning, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, has generally failed to increase his support among American voters.
Obama's supporters are much more optimistic than Romney's. Eighty-six percent of Obama supporters say he will win the race, compared to 9 percent who think he will lose. Meanwhile, 65 percent of Romney supporters think he will win the election, compared to 28 percent who predict that he will lose.
Democrats are also more optimistic than Republicans about their candidate's chances, with 80 percent of Democrats predicting an Obama win, compared to 60 percent of Republicans expecting Romney to win.
Although the presidential race between Obama and Romney has generally been a tight one, Americans by a fairly wide margin expect Obama to win, probably because he is the incumbent, the Gallup said.
As to the implications of this poll, Gallup said that it can go either way for both candidates. For the Republicans, the thought that their candidate is the underdog could motivate them to campaign for Romney and get out and vote, or could be discouraging and end up suppressing their vote.
Similarly, Democrats' confidence that their candidate will win could encourage them to get out and vote to make sure that is a reality, or could cause complacency and lower their turnout percentage, the Gallup said.
The Republican Party officially kicked off the RNC in Tampa, Florida, on Monday, in a low-key short ceremony, as the first-day agenda has been canceled due to the threat of Tropical Storm Isaac.
Romney, together with his running mate House Representative Paul Ryan, is expected to be officially nominated as the Republican presidential nominee Tuesday night by about 5,000 RNC delegates, formally setting up a close race with the Democratic Party's Obama/Biden ticket.
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