Only Senior Citizens Support Romney Over President Obama in Pew Survey
Nationally unpopular, Romney holds solid lead over GOP challengers, Ron Paul a threat as third party candidate
Jan.
18, 2012 A new survey released today shows only senior citizens registered voters age 65 or older would vote for Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney in a race with President Barack Obama.
The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted January 11-16 primarily focused on the GOP
primary race and found Romney with a substantial lead nationally, but his image among all voters has slipped and no better in a general
election matchup with Barack Obama than he did then, despite his advantage as the electable Republican candidate.
Among all voters, Obama would win with 50% of the vote, compared to just 45% for Romney. Obama's margin if even larger
among all voters under the age of 65. He would get 54% of the votes from people age 18 to 44, while Romney would get just 40%. Among
registered voters age 45 through 65, Obama gets 49% to 46% for Romney.
They survey also shows a distinct split between senior citizens that lean Democrat and Republican. Among Republican
leaning seniors, only 6% support Obama, which 93% favor Romney. It is almost the exact opposite among Democratic leaning seniors - 90% for
Obama and only 7% for Romney.
Other highlights in Pew summary
● Romney nearly doubles the support of his closest competitors for the Republican nomination.
● Currently, 31% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters support Romney, compared with 16% for Newt Gingrich, 15%
for Ron Paul, 14% for Rick Santorum and 5% for Rick Perry. The preferences of GOP voters are little changed since shortly before the New
Hampshire primary.
● Among all voters, however, Romneys image is negative. In fact, slightly fewer voters have a favorable opinion of
Romney than did so in November (33% now, 38% then); nearly half of voters (47%) say they have an unfavorable impression of the former
Massachusetts governor.
● Romney continues to run about even with Obama in a general election matchup, even though Obamas job disapproval
rating has edged up since December. Currently, 48% of the public disapproves of the way Obama is handling his job as president while 44%
approve. Last month, 46% approved and 43% disapproved.
● In a general election matchup, 50% of registered voters say they would vote for Obama while 45% support Romney. That
is little changed from November (49% Obama, 47% Romney), and early October (48% each).
● The survey finds that a third-party campaign by Ron Paul would clearly work to Obamas advantage: In this scenario,
44% of registered voters say they would favor Obama, 32% would back Romney and 18% would back Paul.
● Overall, voters under 65 are about twice as likely as older voters to say they would support Ron Paul in a three-way
race with Obama and Romney; 21% of those 18-44, and 19% of those 45-64 would support Paul, compared with just 11% of older voters.
Jan.
18, 2012 A new survey released today shows only senior citizens registered voters age 65 or older would vote for Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney in a race with President Barack Obama.