President Barack Obama waves as he arrives on Air Force One at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012, in New York. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)JENNIFER AGIESTA and NANCY BENAC
WASHINGTON (AP) – Americans are feeling markedly better about the country’s future and about Barack Obama’s job performance, but the president’s re-election race against Republican Mitt Romney remains a neck-and-neck proposition as Election Day creeps ever closer, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.
Buoyed by good mojo coming out of last month’s national political conventions, Obama’s approval rating is back above 50 percent for the first time since May, and the share of Americans who think the country is moving in the right direction is at its highest level since just after the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
Romney, his campaign knocked off-stride in recent weeks, has lost his pre-convention edge on the top issue of the campaign – the economy.
The poll results vividly underscore the importance that turnout will play in determining the victor in Campaign 2012: Among all adults, Obama has a commanding lead, favored by 52 percent of Americans to just 37 percent for Romney. Yet among those most likely to vote, the race is drum tight.