President Barack Obama only leads a generic Republican candidate by 2 percentage points in a potential 2012 match up, according to a new Gallup Poll out Thursday that also shows a continued drift of independents from Democrats.
Obama leads 44 percent to 42 percent, a statistical dead heat, against a nameless Republican, according to the survey of 1,025 adults nationwide.
Not surprisingly, the poll shows that Democrats strongly believe the president should be reelected, while Republicans would like to see one of their own in the White House.
But among independent voters, 45 percent would back a Republican and only 31 percent would favor the president. Twenty-four percent of independents are not sure if they would vote for Obama or a Republican candidate.
The gap among independents is similar to what Democrats have experienced in the recent statewide races in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts where Republicans were able to win by piecing together a coalition that included people who voted for the president. Obama won independent voters by 8 percentage points in 2008, by a spread of 52 percent to 44 percent, according to network exit polls.
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