NEW YORK TIMES…. Showing steady improvement since early December, Mr. Obama’s approval rating has reached the 50 percent mark in The Times/CBS News poll — an important baseline in presidential politics and his highest approval rating since May 2010 (excepting the brief bump he received after Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011).
For the first time since the election season began in earnest in the late summer, as many Democratic voters as Republicans said they were more enthusiastic than usual about voting in the 2012 presidential election. That would appear to wipe out the “enthusiasm gap” that promised to help Republicans greatly next fall.
Their combative contest remains in flux, with former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania now in a statistical tie with Mitt Romney after Mr. Santorum’s victories in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Mr. Santorum’s sharp rise in the polls underscores some of Mr. Romney’s perceived weaknesses, with voters saying that Mr. Santorum shares their values and that they connect to his blue-collar economic message…. (more)
