Another poll finds that Mitt Romney’s net favorability rating continues to tank at a remarkable rate. From Public Policy Polling’s new survey of North Carolina:
The Republican nomination process has taken a huge toll on Romney’s image in North Carolina. In February of 2011 voters in the state were almost evenly divided on him with 37% rating him favorably to 39% who had a negative opinion of him. Now that spread is a dreadful 29/58. His numbers with GOP voters are about where they’ve been, but he’s seen a considerable drop in his appeal to Democrats and independents.
He was actually popular with independents at 45/36 last winter, now he is incredibly unpopular at 25/62. And what was once a decent amount of crossover appeal to Democrats with 23% seeing him favorably to 52% with a negative opinion is now a 12/77 spread. Romney may see some improvement in his numbers as conservative leaning voters start to unify around him, but for now they’re pretty dreadful.
This is not an outlier. Most polls have found Romney’s favorablity rating has been collapsing over the past few months. Pew Research’s national poll last month found that 51% hold an unfavorable view of him. Romney currently holds the worst favorability rating of any major candidate in decades.
Similarly a new Washington Post/ABC News found that by a 64 to 26 percent margin voters say Obama is a friendly and more likable human being than Romney.
It is likely that this general election is going to be a very negative campaign with both sides trying to tear down the other party’s presidential candidate. This task, though, is going to be significantly easier for the Democrats. Romney is already so unlikable that the Obama team doesn’t need to bring his favorable numbers any lower; they need only keep them in their currently horrible state.
