New Pew Poll Shows Obama With Eight Point National Lead Among Likely Voters

The new Pew Poll is going to cause a lot of anguish in Teabagistan. And this poll came before the "47 percent" debacle hit the fan.

At this stage in the campaign, Barack Obama is in a strong position compared with past victorious presidential candidates. With an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely voters, Obama holds a bigger September lead than the last three candidates who went on to win in November, including Obama four years ago. In elections since 1988, only Bill Clinton, in 1992 and 1996, entered the fall with a larger advantage. Not only does Obama enjoy a substantial lead in the horserace, he tops Romney on a number of key dimensions. His support is stronger than his rival’s, and is positive rather than negative. Mitt Romney’s backers are more ardent than they were pre-convention, but are still not as enthusiastic as Obama’s. Roughly half of Romney’s supporters say they are voting against Obama rather than for the Republican nominee.

NOTE: Polling "likely voters" tends to provide a more accurate forecast that polling merely "registered voters."