Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Polling and more polling

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National Journal:

Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting President Obama's reelection bid, released polls Wednesday that it says shows Romney's favorability has declined in five key battleground states as a result of its $10 million ad campaign slamming his business record at the helm of Bain Capital.

The polls, conducted by Democratic firms Global Strategy Group and Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, found that more likely voters have an unfavorable view of Romney than a favorable one in five swing states: Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Romney has an average favorable rating of only 36 percent in those states, with an average 43 percent unfavorable rating.  Among independent voters, the ratio is worse: 30 percent favorable and 42 percent unfavorable. Thirty-seven percent of those polled said Romney's business record at Bain made them less likely to vote for him. Only 27 percent said it made them more likely...

Romney's unfavorable rating was 9 points higher than his favorable rating in Priorities markets, but that gap was only 5 points where the ads were not shown. Among voters who had seen the Bain attacks, Obama had an 11-point advantage on the question of whether the candidate 'is honest and someone you can trust.'

Bain is hurting Romney. They can deny it all they want.

ABC/WaPo poll (.pdf):

Obama also continues to prevail in expectations: Despite his troubles, this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that Americans by 58-34 percent expect him ultimately to defeat Romney and win a second term. That's Obama's best on this gauge to date (previously measured against 'the Republican nominee'), a sharp difference from last October, when, with economic discontent at a higher pitch, 55 percent thought Obama would lose. Today, even among Romney's supporters, a quarter think Obama will win.

Quinnipiac poll:

Driven by a yawning marriage gap, and a 2-1 lead among single women, President Barack Obama gets 46 percent of American voters to 43 percent for Gov. Mitt Romney, largely on the support of singles, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

Married voters back Romney 51 - 38 percent, while unmarried voters back President Obama 54 - 34 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Among married voters, Romney leads 54 - 35 percent among men and 49 - 42 percent among women. Among single voters, Obama leads 47 - 38 percent among men and 60 - 31 percent among women.

Reuters/Ipsos poll:

President Barack Obama expanded his lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney to 6 percentage points in the White House race this month as voters became slightly more optimistic about the economy, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday.

Greg Sargent:

In an interview with me just now, Geoff Garin, the pollster for the lead Obama ally Priorities USA Action, spelled this out ' and insisted new polling the group has produced shows the attack is working.

Priorities will release a memo tomorrow detailing polling in the five swing states where Priorities has been running ads ' Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Garin said the polling will show:

* a clear jump in the number of voters in those states who are less, rather than more, likely to vote for Romney on the basis of his business background, and

* a sizable jump in the number who believe Romney's priority was making lots of money for himself and his investers, regardless of the impact it had on jobs and employees.

I will be on Daily Kos radio with David Waldman at ~9:10 ET to talk about these polls. Listen here.

The Blue Skies Netroots Radio Player

Milos Forman (film director):

Obama the Socialist? Not Even Close

Now, years later, I hear the word 'socialist' being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, 'Obamacare is socialism!' They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.

Matt Miller:

See the pattern here?

The Republican message to uninsured Americans in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent ruling couldn't be clearer: You're on your own.

WaPo:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday vowed to be 'aggressive' in challenging voting laws that restrict minority rights, using a speech in Texas to make his case on the same day a federal court was considering the legality of the state's new voter ID legislation.

'Let me be clear: We will not allow political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious rights,' Holder said in the speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 'I can assure you that the Justice Department's efforts to uphold and enforce voting rights will remain aggressive.'