Dem poll: Obama beats Mitt in N.H., voters turn on state GOP
By ALEXANDER BURNS
2/16/12 5:25 AM EST
President Barack Obama is back on positive ground in the state of New Hampshire, leading Mitt Romney by 8 percentage points in a general-election match-up and winning independent voters there by 14 points, according to a poll taken by the Benenson Strategy Group.
The Democratic poll – commissioned by New Hampshire labor groups – found that the president’s favorability rating is above water: 47 percent of likely New Hampshire voters have a favorable view of him, while 45 percent have an unfavorable view. That’s not a commanding position, but it’s a big improvement over the fall, when multiple polls showed the president losing the state.
New Hampshire is a state the president won comfortably in 2008, but that looks (or looked) like a battleground where Romney should be a formidable competitor, given his New England political roots and his powerful win in the Granite State primary. But as the general-election tide has shifted a bit nationally, the race has evidently moved in New Hampshire as well.
According to a memo shared with POLITICO, the president’s rebound in the state coincides with voters turning against the Republican state legislature there. In February of 2011, 49 percent of voters said they favored the agenda of the GOP legislature; now, only 38 percent say they support it, with 51 percent saying the opposite.
Half of voters say they have an unfavorable view of the tea party, while 29 percent say they have a favorable view of the conservative activist movement. And tea party-aligned State House Speaker Bill O’Brien has gone from a 6 percent favorable, 16 percent unfavorable rating, to 15 percent favorable, 29 percent unfavorable.
Perhaps the central legislative flash point in New Hampshire politics over the last year has been a “right to work” law Republicans have pushed, but have not been able to pass due to the opposition of Democratic Gov. John Lynch. The BSG memo makes the case that Democrats are winning the message war on the issue: Sixty-four percent of voters said a right to work bill should not be a high priority and 51 percent of voters agreed with the statement: “Unions are good. They make sure employers provide good wages, benefits and a safe work environment.”
Thirty-nine percent agreed with the opposing statement: “Unions are bad. They drive up the cost of doing business and drive jobs out of New Hampshire.”
And 57 percent of respondents said they would oppose a bill ending collective bargaining for public employees.
The poll tested 600 likely general election voters on Jan. 30 and Feb. 1 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.
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