United Liberty

It’ll be nearly three years before Republicans begin to head to the polls to choose their presidential nominee, but they jockeying for position is well under way. Both Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), both of whom are thought to be among the Republicans who will seek the nomination, have been making high-profile speeches and legislative proposals over the first four months of the year.

But according to a new poll, voters have a more favorable opinion of Paul, who has carried the Tea Party banner in the Senate, than they do Rubio, who has been dubbed by Time as the “Republican savior”:

According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, Paul, who was elected with strong tea party support in Kentucky, comes in at 53% among Republicans, and 32% among independents.

Rubio’s favorable rating among Republicans, meanwhile, is 48%. Among independents, the Florida senator is at 27%.

The numbers fall mostly in line with a CNN/ORC International poll conducted last month, when 53% of Republicans had a positive opinion of Paul, though slightly more–54%–felt the same about Rubio at the time.

And while Rubio was a top surrogate for GOP nominee Mitt Romney and a contender to be his running mate, Paul still has higher ratings among Romney voters than Rubio, 62%-56%, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.

While other polls show Iowa and Wisconsin out of Mitt Romney’s reach, new polling from Rasmussen in both states show a tightening race with just four days left to go until voters head to the polls.

The Real Clear Politics shows Obama up by 2 points (an average of the most recent polls), but the latest from Rasmussen shows Romney with a 1-point lead, within the margin of error:

A week ago, the candidates were tied at 48% apiece. The president led by two earlier in the month, while Romney posted a three-point lead in September.  Prior to the latest findings, Romney’s support in Iowa has fallen in the narrow range of 46% to 48% in surveys since June, while Obama’s support has ranged from 44% to 49%.

Forty-two percent (42%) of likely Iowa voters have already voted. The president leads 56% to 39% among these voters.

In line with voters nationally, Iowa voters trust Romney more by seven points – 51% to 44% - when it comes to handling the economy but trust the candidates equally in the area of national security.

Independent voters are the key to this presidential election. There is little doubt about that. Mitt Romney is already doing well in swing states with these crucial voting bloc, and, as Chris Cillizza recently explained at the Washington Post, may ride them to victory over President Barack Obama:

In the last three releases of the tracking poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News, Obama has trailed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among independent voters by between 16 and 20 percentage points.

That’s a striking reversal from 2008, when Obama won independent voters, who made up 29 percent of the electorate, by eight points over Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
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So, what gives? Why is Obama — at least according to the Post-ABC data — having so much trouble with independents?

The answer lies in the fact that most independents are not, well, independent. Of all the likely voters who called themselves independents in nine days of the Post-ABC tracking poll, fully three-quarters (75 percent) — said they tend to lean toward one party or the other. (The remainder are known as “pure” independents.)

And it’s among those shadow partisans that Obama is struggling. Ninety-two percent of Republican-leaning independents said they plan to support Romney, while 84 percent of Democratic-leaning independents are backing Obama.

This morning we ran through the current electoral vote count and what states were currently in play for both candidates. Some may be wondering what factors are driving the race right as Mitt Romney looks to be making substantial gains in swing states. Perhaps the most important voting bloc helping Romney in these important states is independents, as Christian Heinze notes over at The Hill:

Below, I’ve listed polls showing where the race is with indies, currently (based on polls where pollsters have made partisan breakdowns available).

a. Colorado = Obama won by 10% with indies in 2008.

Most recent polls: Romney +4%, Obama +1%, Romney +4%

b. Florida = Obama won by 9% with indies in 2008.

There is no denying that Mitt Romney has had a rough go of things lately. President Barack Obama managed to get a decent bounce out of the Democratic National Convention, though it seems to be diminishing in recent polls, and the aftermath of the attack on the United States Embassy in Libya was contentious thanks to the media focusing on his criticisms of Obama rather than the substance of his comments about the incident.

The latest outrage is that Mitt Romney has written off 47% of voters who he says will never vote for him because they are too dependent on the government:

During a private reception with wealthy donors this year, Mitt Romney described almost half of Americans as “people who pay no income tax” and are “dependent upon government.” Those voters, he said, would probably support  President Obama because they believe they are “victims” who are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

Citizens United, a group made famous thanks to a 2010 Supreme Court case dealing with free speech, put together some good stuff about the Left in the United States. They will soon be released Occupy Unmasked, which documents the crazy that we know as Occupy Wall Street.

Another documentary, The Hope and the Change, they’ve put together looks at the thoughts of some Democrats and independent voters who supported Barack Obama in 2008, but have been disappointed in his presidency:

This documentary, which is out now on DVD,  will be among those offered by Citizens United for a free screening during next week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa.