President Barack Obama maintains a slight and statistically insignificant edge over Mitt Romney nationally, according to a new
CNN/ORC International poll, but Romney leads Obama in critical battleground states.
Obama leads Romney nationally by three percentage points, 49 to 46, with 4 percent of those saying they would vote for another candidate or neither candidate, which is inside the poll's margin of error. In the 15 states CNN calls battleground states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin — Romney leads Obama, 51 percent to 43 percent.
"Note carefully that this does not mean that Romney will win each of those states by eight points, or that he will win all 15 of those states," said Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director. "That's both good news and bad news for Romney. The good news: he has residual strength in states that the two campaigns are fighting over. The bad news: Romney is also spending resources defending states that should be part of the GOP coalition, rather than taking the battle to Obama's home turf."
Romney leads among men by 5 points and among voters 50 and older, Romney leads, 53 percent to 43 percent. Obama leads by 11 among women and gets strong support from young voters. Obama also wins 39 percent of the white vote and four-in-five nonwhites say they would vote for Obama over Romney.
The CNN/ORC International poll was conducted June 28-July 1.
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