President Barack Obama laughs as he visits with supporters following his campaign stop at the Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nev., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)JOSH LEDERMAN and TOM RAUM
WASHINGTON (AP) – For all the attention it got, Republican Mitt Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate has not altered the race against President Barack Obama. The campaign remains neck and neck with less than three months to go, a new AP-GfK poll shows.
Overall, 47 percent of registered voters said they planned to back Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in November, while 46 percent favored Romney and Ryan. That’s not much changed from a June AP-GfK survey, when the split was 47 percent for the president to 44 percent for Romney.
At the same time, there’s a far wider gap when people were asked who they thought would win. Some 58 percent of adults said they expected Obama to be re-elected, while just 32 percent said they thought he’d be voted out of office.
After just over a week on the campaign trail, Ryan has a 38 percent favorable rating among adults, while 34 percent see him unfavorably. Among registered voters, his numbers are slightly better – 40 percent favorable to 34 percent unfavorable. Ryan remains unknown to about a quarter of voters.