Latest poll shows race tightening, but the President maintains significant advantages among unaffiliated voters and in suburban communities.
DENVER _ President Barack Obama leads Gov. Mitt Romney 48 percent to 45 percent in a live interview survey of likely Colorado voters.
The poll, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, is the latest in a series of tracking polls released by Keating Research, Inc. and OnSight Public Affairs. It shows the race for the Centennial State tightening, but Obama continues to maintain a lead among the state’s unaffiliated voters. He leads Romney 52 percent to 38 percent among unaffiliated voters, which make up about a third of the electorate.
The advantage among unaffiliated voters is also significant because both candidates appear to have secured their party’s base voters. Registered Democrats favor Obama 90 percent to 6 percent while Republicans favor Romney 87 percent to 7 percent.
“In Colorado, it always comes down to who can appeal to the unaffiliated voters,” said Chris Keating of Keating Research, Inc. “They are now the largest voting block in the state and the candidate who wins them over is almost certain to take the state.”
Obama has consistently held a lead in all of our 2012 Presidential tracking polls, including a poll in August that showed Obama up 48 percent to 44 percent and a poll following the conventions showing the President up 49 percent to 44 percent
Read the poll
. Only our September poll has shown an advantage outside the margin of error.
About one-third of those polled said they had already cast a ballot, and Obama held a 9-point advantage, 53 percent to Romney’s 44 percent, among early voters.
“Obama has held a thin but steady margin in the polls, but the difference in this race will likely come down to the campaign can get its people to cast votes,” said Mike Melanson of Onsight Public Affairs. “You can expect to see the campaigns concentrate on Colorado and a few other swing states as Election Day draws near.”
Obama leads by 10 points in the bellwether regions of Arapahoe and Jefferson counties. He continues to hold a significant advantage among women with 52 percent supporting him while 41 percent support Romney. The President also holds a nearly 4-to-1 advantage among Hispanic voters.
But Romney has made gains with several voting blocks since the conventions. He now holds a seven-point advantage among men, with 50 percent supporting the former Massachusetts governor and 43 percent supporting the President. The candidates had been virtually tied among men in August.
Romney has also expanded his lead among white voters, leading Obama 52 percent to 42 percent.
Voters said they favored Obama 46 percent to Romney’s 41 percent when it came to which candidate they thought of as “someone you can trust.”
This polling data is based on 502 live telephone interviews conducted October 23-24 among likely November 2012 voters statewide in Colorado. For this sample of 502 interviews the worst-case margin of error at the 95 percent level is plus or minus 4.4 percent. Respondents were chosen at random from a list of voters with phone numbers, including cell-phones.