While former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin commands the national spotlight, turning out “tea party” activists and headlining rallies, for now Romney claims the lead, months before an official field takes shape. Palin, GOP nominee John McCain's 2008 running mate, took second.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are tied for third place and Texas Rep. Ron Paul came in fifth place, according to the McClatchy-Marist poll and the Gallup poll.
For this November’s midterm elections, their polls revealed that Americans are much more likely to believe the Republicans rather than the Democrats will win control of the US House of Representatives. More than 8 in 10 Republicans believe their party will win, while 62% of Democrats think their party will win. Independents think Republicans will win.
Americans have been quite successful in forecasting election outcomes, correctly predicting the winner of each of the four prior midterm elections when Gallup asked the same question in 1946, 1958, 1962, and 2006.
The public also correctly predicted Barack Obama would win the 2008 presidential election.
Though Americans may expect a Republican victory in the fall, they do not necessarily believe the country will benefit. The Gallup poll finds the largest number, 36%, said the country will be better off if Republicans control Congress, but 24% believe the country will be worse off and 32% say it will not make any difference.
In 2006, as now, about one in three Americans believed a change in party control would not make a difference, perhaps indicating some general cynicism about government in general. Even one in five Republicans polled this week said it would not make a difference if Republicans win back control of Congress.
Views on whether the country would benefit from Republican control are predictably partisan, with Republicans thinking the country would be better off if the GOP gained control, and Democrats believing the US would be worse off.
Significantly, polls also found that while Americans anger is focused on politicians in Washington, nearly two years into his presidency, 51% of Americans say President Barack Obama bears little to no blame for US economic problems, while 48% assign him a great deal or moderate amount of blame.
Although more Americans now blame Obama than did so a year ago, a significantly higher percentage, 71%, blame former President George W. Bush.
Obama, however, is not out of hot water. For the first time, a majority of registered voters, 54%, said Obama had fallen short of their expectations for him as president. The figure was even more pronounced, 59%, among voters younger than 30, the very group Obama hoped to energize permanently.
The president's approval rating among registered voters was dragged down by those who fear that the worst of the economic crisis is still to come.
Finally, in case you missed it – Bill Clinton is now America's most popular politician.
That's how the findings of the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey are being reported; their poll found that Clinton is more popular than Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Harry Reid, Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi.
Despite all this glum news for Democrats in the White House, there’s some light coming from across the Atlantic. According to the Irish bookmaking agency “Paddy Power” that confirms that odds favor Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin as the next Republican nominee for president, it notes that either one would lose to President Obama, the odds-on favorite at 8-1 to win a second term in the White House.
