2012 Election Match Up: Romney Wins, Paul Might

According to a recent CBS News Poll Romney would beat Obama in a hypothetical presidential election match up with 47 percent to Obama's 45 percent. Yet, these numbers are still within the poll's margin of error. Also, the poll found that Ron Paul would garner 45 percent of the vote to Obama's 46 percent, also within the margin of error. Part of Romney and Paul's relative success compared to other GOP candidates like Santorum, Gingrich, and Perry, is that both Romney and Paul receive nearly half the Independent vote. In a hypothetical match up, Paul would garner 47 percent of the Independent vote compared to Obama's 40 percent. Likewise, Romney would receive 45 percent of the Independent vote compared to Obama's 39.

These numbers are crucial to campaign strategy, as Independent voters play a significant role in determining the selection of president. In 2008 Obama won over Independent voters. Today, Obama would lose the Independent vote to Romney and Paul. 

Full poll results can be found here.

The CBS news poll was conducted by telephone from January 4-8, 2012 among 1,413 adults nationwide, including 1,247 interviews were conducted with registered voters. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The margin of error for the sample of registered voters could be plus or minus three points. The error for subgroups may be higher. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

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