Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation poll: Voters say Romney should disclose 12 years of tax returns

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 7/12-7/15. Registered voters. MoE ±3.1% (6/28-7/1 results):

Do you think Mitt Romney should release his tax returns for the last 12 years, or not?

He should: 56
He should not: 34

Those numbers speak for themselves. Despite Mitt Romney's refusal to release any tax returns at all before 2010, voters want him to meet the standard set by his father'the release of 12 years worth of returns. President Obama has already met that standard and with Romney's refusing to follow suit, we can only guess at the reasons why.

Whatever those reasons are, Romney has clearly calculated that releasing the returns would cause more damage than hiding them. Judging by the fact that a solid majority favors disclosure, those returns must not look good for Mittens.

There's a partisan skew to these numbers, of course, with Democrats overwhelmingly favoring disclosure and Republicans opposing it. But as David Axelrod points out, the poll shows that independents are squarely on the side of releasing the documents:

Independents think Romney should release 12 years of returns by a 61/27 margin: http://t.co/...
What the heck is stopping them?
' @davidaxelrod via Twitter for iPhone Moderates also favor disclosure by a wide margin, 65 percent to 25 percent.

One very interesting note is that the income group most supportive of disclosure were people earning over $100,000 per year. The sample size there is pretty small, but at the very least it's a reminder that this isn't a "class warfare" issue. This is about disclosure versus secrecy.

We also asked whether voters thought Mitt Romney should release documents about his overseas investments in places like Switzerland and Bermuda. A similar margin'56 percent to 36 percent'favored disclosure.

As always, you can read the full crosstabs here. Overall, according to the poll, President Obama holds a two point lead over Mitt Romney.