Filed by KOSU News in Politics.
February 6, 2012

President Obama has his first “clear edge” over Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney in polling done for The Washington Post and ABC News:

“In a general-election test, Obama leads Romney 52 to 43 percent among all Americans; more narrowly, 51 to 45 percent, among registered voters. Among all adults, it’s Obama’s first time topping 50 percent in a head-to-head matchup with Romney since July; it’s his first time ever above that point among registered voters.”

The margin of error on the full poll of 1,000 adults (conducted Feb. 1-4) is +/- four percentage points. Among those, 879 were registered voters. The margin of error on the responses of registered voters would be slightly higher.

Real Clear Politics has a chart of other Romney vs. Obama polls. It gives the president an average lead of 3.7 percentage points.

As always with polling, it’s important to remember that such surveys ask about which candidate people would vote for “if the presidential election were held today.” Obviously, the election isn’t until Nov. 6 and a lot can happen between now and then.

Obama, by the way, made his case for why he deserves a second term during an interview with NBC-TV’s Matt Lauer that was broadcast before Sunday’s Super Bowl and during this morning’s Today Show.

Meanwhile, if you’re just catching up on the weekend’s political news, Romney easily won the Nevada Republican presidential caucuses. Now, it’s on to Colorado and Minnesota, which hold their caucuses on Tuesday. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]