Election 2012: Obama 44%, Romney 38%

President Obama has opened up a six-point lead over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in a hypothetical Election 2012 matchup.  This is the widest gap between the two men since mid-August.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Obama earning 44% support from Likely Voters, while Romney receives 38% of the vote.  Ten percent (10%) prefers some other candidate, and another eight percent (8%) are not sure.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Romney and the president have been neck-and-neck for nearly two months, separated by two points or less in a series of surveys.  Two-weeks ago, Obama earned 43% of the vote to Romney’s 42%.  In regular surveys since February, support for Romney has remained in the narrow range of 38% to 44%.  In that same period, the president has earned 40% to 46% of the vote.

The president trails Romney by a slight margin among voters in Florida and Missouri.

A generic Republican candidate runs slightly ahead of President Obama nationally but the president leads all named opponents.

Of the top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, Romney is viewed most favorably by all voters nationwide, while Perry is the least liked. Romney is also the GOP candidate voters consider the most qualified to be president and is seen as closer to the political mainstream than any of the other candidates for the White House, including Obama.  

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The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on November 21-22, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.