WSJ/NBC Poll Gives Edge to Obama Over Romney 5/22/2012An exclusive WSJ/NBC poll has given President Obama a four point lead over presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney but as WSJ's Neil King explains, the poll also shows voters remain unhappy over the state of the economy, Congress and Wall Street.
Voters remain deeply pessimistic about the nation's future and uncertain of President Barack Obama's ability to set the economy on the right course, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that found Mr. Obama locked in a tight race with Mitt Romney.
But the poll found much to stir concern within the burgeoning Obama re-election campaign. Despite signs of economic recovery, nearly half of Americans said the country is at the start of a long-term decline. Americans by a sizable plurality said Mr. Obama's approach has worsened the nation's budget deficit and health-care problems, and increased its partisan divide.
After emerging last month as the all-but-certain Republican nominee, Mr. Romney is consolidating support among conservatives, the poll found, and much of the public is open to the idea that his business background would help him improve the economy.
His supporters express more enthusiasm about the election than do Mr. Obama's.
But the former Massachusetts governor faces his own challenges. He has yet to engender deep confidence in his economic policies, the core of his campaign pitch. Three-quarters of respondents said they were only somewhat confident or not confident at all that Mr. Romney had the right ideas to improve the economy. And nearly three in 10 said electing a Mormon president would cause them or their neighbors concern, including one-quarter of independents.
"Never before will so much money be spent by so many to persuade so few," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who directed the poll along with Republican Bill McInturff.
The poll found a striking symmetry in the pessimism Americans express about whether either candidate can nudge the country in the right direction.
Asked to weigh their faith in the men, around a third of respondents expressed confidence that Mr. Obama would bring the right kind of change, with a nearly equal share saying the same of Mr. Romney. But large majorities said the two would bring either no change or the wrong kind of change, reflecting a general lack of optimism about the election's outcome.
Based on the poll and other data, Mr. Hart put Mr. Obama's chances of re-election in November at "no better than 50/50."
Incumbents win, Mr. Hart said, "when voters are buoyant with the economic times." At this point, he said, Mr. Obama "is in the Twilight Zone—neither safe nor gone," while signs that the public sees an economic upturn "have yet to appear."
Mr. McInturff predicted that the public's sense of the economy, and not perceptions of either candidate's likability, is likely to determine the election's outcome.
After his approval ratings slipped sharply last summer amid the congressional debt-ceiling standoff, Mr. Obama regained his footing in December and January as the economy showed new vigor and after a series of speeches he gave targeting middle-class concerns about "tax fairness" and widespread antipathy toward Wall Street.
But Mr. Obama's numbers since then either held firm or inched downward, with 48% now approving of his job performance and 46% disapproving. Only one-third of Americans said the country is on the right track.
Just over half of those polled said they disapproved of the president's handling of the economy, and the number was even higher among independents, white women and white working-class voters.
At this point in 2004, Americans as a whole held strikingly similar views of the country's direction and President George W. Bush's performance, before he went on to narrowly beat Sen. John Kerry that November.
The new poll found Americans have sharply different views of the candidates depending on the voter's gender, age and ethnicity.
Just over a third of respondents believe Mr. Obama has brought the right kind of change to the country. But that number goes up sharply among young voters, single women, Hispanics and African-Americans, and down sharply among whites overall, men over 50 and independents.
Despite his relatively low approval rating, Mr. Obama continues to enjoy wide margins of support among women, voters under 34 and households earning less than $50,000 a year.
In recent weeks, the president and his campaign have tried to pummel Mr. Romney for his record in the 1980s and '90s as the head of private-equity firm Bain Capital.
Whether that faith translates into votes is another question.
Robbie Giant, a 32-year-old independent in Modesto, Calif., praised Mr. Romney "as a businessperson" and said that makes him better suited for fixing the economy. Still, Mr. Giant, who is gay, said he is leaning toward Mr. Obama because of the president's recent declaration of support for same-sex marriage.
"I kind of like the idea of having equal rights," Mr. Giant said. "I should be able to get married if I want to."
Others interviewed reflected a kind of pragmatism.
"Romney is far from a utopian candidate for me," said Phillip Goralski, a 35-year-old Milwaukee accountant, noting the presumptive GOP nominee's role in crafting the statewide health-care law in Massachusetts.
But "it's kind of like the lesser of two evils," said Mr. Goralski, who described himself as a Republican. Asked if he would consider voting for Mr. Obama, he said, "definitely not."
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