1. So Romney is now .7% ahead of Obama in the RCP average. By way of comparison, John Kerry (who was running to unseat an incumbent of comparable job approval ratings) never led and never got closer than 1.7% to Bush in the post convention period. Bush ended up winning the popular vote by 2.4%. From the perspective of 2004, it really couldn’t be any closer.
2. On the other hand, Obama’s job approval rating has been incredibly stable at between 48.9% and 50.0% since the weekend after the Democratic convention. That is probably a better measure of Obama’s “floor” than the head-to-head match ups. Unless something happens to bring down Obama’s job approval rating (and I would guess it would have to be a real world event rather than a campaign event), Obama’s floor is about 49%. That leaves room for a Romney win. There is just not a lot of room for a bad break or a bad debate performance.
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