Four years ago, President Barack Obama became the first Democrat since 1964 to win Indiana. He looks unlikely to repeat that feat.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds challenger Mitt Romney picking up 51 percent of the vote while the president earns just 35 percent. Three percent (3 percent) prefer some other candidate, and 11 percent are undecided.
This is a bigger lead for Romney than he enjoyed in May and shifts the race from "Leans Romney" to "Safe Romney" in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projections. Among voters nationwide, the race remains very close in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
Forty-eight percent (48 percent) of Hoosier voters rate their own finances as good or excellent. That’s well above the national average. Twenty-one percent (21 percent) believe their finances are getting better while 33 percent say they are getting worse.
Forty percent (40 percent) believe the economy will get better if Romney wins and Republicans have control of Congress. Just 29 percent believe that would make things worse.
If Obama and the Democrats win, 22 percent believe the economy will get better and 48 percent say it will get worse.
Nationally, 32 percent believe things will get better with an Obama victory and 36 percent say the same of a Romney victory.
The Indiana survey of 400 likely voters was conducted July 31-August 1, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 5 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
The president’s job approval rating in Indiana is 39 percent, well below his national approval rating.
Indiana is now the only state won by Obama in 2008 that is listed as Safe romney. Romney has a modest lead in North Carolina, another state won by the president four years ago. That state is listed as leans Romney. Six other Obama 2008 states are listed as Toss-Ups: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado and Iowa. Four others are rated Leans Obama: Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Michigan.
Overall, at the moment, the president is likely to carry states with 201 Electoral Votes and Romney is likely to win in states with 181. However, there are 12 states with 156 Electoral Voters that are either Toss-Ups or Leaner’s that are likely to determine the victor.
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