Mitt’s bouncing high.
After what was widely considered a clear-cut victory during the first presidential debate last Wednesday, Romney stormed ahead of President Obama by 2 percentage points in a national poll released yesterday, winning support from 49 percent of voters nationwide, compared to Obama’s 47.
“It’s a real indicator that Governor Romney had a good debate and has at least for the short term changed the perception of the race,” said pollster Scott Rasmussen.
Going into the debate, Obama led by two points, according to Rasmussen’s daily presidential tracking poll.
“Bounces are called bounces because they don’t last forever,” Rasmussen said. “We don’t know if this will disappear, or if they will build on it, or what other news will do to the race.”
About two-thirds of the voters were polled after Wednesday night’s debate in Denver. About 2 percent of voters said they were undecided and 2 percent said they preferred someone else, according to the pollster.
“This is a small shift that’s significant in a close race,” continued Rasmussen. “The reality is we went from Obama 49-47, to Romney 49-47. Both candidates have a stable base, and the race is close. Barring something that happens in the real world, it’s likely to remain close.”
Romney’s boost marks the first time since mid-September that the former Massachusetts governor pulled ahead of Obama in the neck-and-neck race — and the campaign got a boost of excitement from donors and volunteers.
Romney raised $12 million in online contributions in the 48 hours after the debate, with 60 percent of the money coming from first-time donors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Romney campaign also saw a surge of volunteers as well as larger crowds at campaign events in Florida, where Rasmussen has Romney up 49 to 47 percent — a turnaround from a month ago, when Obama led there 48 to 46 percent.
The pollster also had Romney up by 1 point in Virginia, a state where Obama was up by a point last month; and in Ohio, Obama is up 50-49, little changed from his 47-46 lead in the same poll last month.
Meanwhile Obama’s campaign said yesterday it raised $181 million in September, the biggest fund-raising month of the year, swelling its coffers at $947 million.
Obama is expected to bone up for the second debate, at Hofstra University on Oct. 16.
“Obama is a competitive person, and he will review the tapes,” said Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins, who served as an adviser to Ronald Reagan.
“When Reagan had a bad first debate, he knew it. He told us immediately and said he would do better next time. My sense is that Obama will do better next time. It will all come down to who gets the voters to the polls.”
Some analysts cautioned about reading too much into a poll released a few days after the debate.
“It’s too early to say anything,” said political analyst Larry Sabato. “We’ve only had two full days since the debate. You have to be cautious and wait for the rolling averages to come out.”
Democrats tend to poll higher on weekends than on weekdays, analysts said, because their supporters are more difficult to track down on the phone during the week.
“You have to have time to call back numbers when the person wasn’t there,” explained Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Democrats sometimes do a little bit better on the weekends, and you need time to go over the full sample to see the whole picture.”