Obama, Democratic senators lead in three Quinnipiac swing state polls

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Quinnipiac. 6/19-25. Florida voters. MoE ±2.8%. (6/12-18 results in parentheses):

Barack Obama (D-inc): 45 (46)
Mitt Romney (R): 41 (42)
Undecided: 9 (6)

Bill Nelson (D-inc): 41 (43)
Connie Mack IV (R): 40 (39)
Undecided: 17 (15)

Quinnipiac is out with a trifecta of swing state polls today, and the news is uniformly good for Democrats: Barack Obama is holding decent leads in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania (at least two of which Mitt Romney would need to have a path to 270), Romney's favorables are dwindling, and Obama's executive order changing immigration policy seems to have been a net positive for him.

Take Florida, for instance, which, going by pollster averages, is the most in danger of these three states of falling back into Republican hands this year. Here, Barack Obama continues to sport the same four-point lead as their previous poll of the state (which came out only last week), much better than the deficits he put up in both their May polls. Mitt Romney is down to 37/42 favorables, after having crested as high as 47/29 back in January. And respondents favor, by a 58-35 margin, Obama's new immigration policy, while saying by a 46-40 margin that Obama would do a better job than Romney on immigration policy.

The one trouble spot anywhere on these polls is the Florida Senate race, which, for some reason, Quinnipiac has always seen in a more pessimistic light for Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson than other pollsters (most of whom have given Nelson leads in the high single digits or even low teens); here they give him only a one-point lead over Republican Rep. Connie Mack, down from a four-point advantage last time. Oddly, they're the only pollster who consistently see the decidedly non-controversial Nelson underperforming the more polarizing Obama, something that doesn't seem too likely.

Quinnipiac. 6/19-25. Ohio voters. MoE ±2.8%. (5/2-7 results in parentheses):

Barack Obama (D-inc): 47 (45)
Mitt Romney (R): 38 (44)
Undecided: 9 (7)

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 50 (46)
Josh Mandel (R): 34 (40)
Undecided: 14 (12)

Quinnipiac catches quite a turnaround in Ohio ... maybe a smidge too good to be true, in fact, as pollster averages have generally had Obama leading in the Buckeye State by low single digits and Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown by high single digits. On the other hand, maybe they're the first to see some real movement in the wake of stepped-up attacks on Romney's relationship with Bain Capital, as outsourcing of jobs seems a particularly potent issue in manufacturing-reliant Ohio.

At any rate, they find Obama's lead up to 9, up from 1 in early May, and similarly Brown's lead over Republican state Treasurer Josh Mandel is now 16, up from 6 (again, it's possible that the Senate race movement is based on something tangible, in this case the fact that Mandel has been savaged by many of the state's major newspapers' editorial pages over the last week). Romney's favorables are down to 32/46, down from 35/37 in their May sample. Obama's new immigration policy is favored 52-38, and he beats Romney 45-38 on the question of who'd be better on immigration policy. (It's worth noting here, though, that while 60 percent say the change in immigration policy will make no difference in who they vote for, 11 percent say it'd make them more likely to vote for him and 27 percent more likely to vote against him, suggesting that its main effect in this mostly white state was just to tick off Republicans even more.)

Quinnipiac. 6/19-25. Pennsylvania voters. MoE ±2.8%. (6/5-10 results in parentheses):

Barack Obama (D-inc): 45 (46)
Mitt Romney (R): 39 (40)
Undecided: 10 (9)

Bob Casey Jr. (D-inc): 49 (51)
Tom Smith (R): 32 (32)
Undecided: 17 (14)

Things stay stable in the Keystone State, where Barack Obama maintains the six-point lead that he had in his previous poll, and that's been pretty much par for the course throughout Quinnipiac's polling of Pennsylvania. It's a little odd to see the race closer in Pennsylvania than Ohio (as historically Pennsylvania usually runs about two to four points left of Ohio), which bolsters my suspicions of the Ohio sample; at any rate, this poll helps secure Pennsylvania on the outermost cusp of swing states, where they cross over into Lean Dem.

Romney's faves are 34/39, holding about steady with 35/42 in their previous poll (Romney's favorables have never been above water in Pennsylvania). Respondents break 51-41 in favor of the new immigration policy, and 44-38 in Obama's favor on the question of who'd be better on immigration policy. Down the ticket, Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey is still having an easy race against self-funding businessman Tom Smith, leading by nearly 20 points.

UPDATE: Public Policy Polling (pdf). 6/16-18. Ohio voters. MoE ±3.3%. (5/3-6 results):

Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 46 (45)
Josh Mandel (R): 39 (37)
Undecided: 15 (19)

Well, no sooner than I hit post than PPP rolled out its Ohio Senate portion too, so I'll sneak that in here too as a counterpoint. PPP finds Brown leading by seven (and in the same sample had Obama leading by three), which are more in line with pollster averages than Quinnipiac's sample. PPP finds Brown's approvals down to 38/42, from 40/35 and the first time he's been underwater in a while, but Mandel slipping even more as he doesn't seem to be making a good first impression as he starts to get better known (down to 24/39, from 25/30 last time).

Perhaps the least appetizing part of PPP's Ohio sample is that they find Republican Gov. John Kasich seemingly rehabilitating himself, as his union-busting efforts from 2011 fade down the memory hole. He's still underwater at 40/48 approvals, but for the first time, PPP finds Kasich actually winning a rematch against Ted Strickland; in most of the previous times they've asked the question, Strickland has been up by double digits.