It’s often said that Barack Obama is more likeable than Mitt Romney. There’s something to this. When pollsters ask respondents whether they have favorable or unfavorable feelings about the two candidates, more express favorable than unfavorable feelings toward Obama while more have been expressing unfavorable than favorable feelings about Romney. Moreover, Romney is the first candidate to clinch a major party’s nomination with negative fav/unfavs.
But the gap seems to be narrowing. The following table shows the fav/unfavs for Romney and Obama by month, calculated from this realclearpolitics.com table. It also shows the number of polls taken in each month and the balance between fav/unfavs. I have combined the results for April and May, since RCP has only two polls listed for May and one of them, Associated Press/GfK, seems to have an unusually Democratic sample (31% Democratic, 22% Republican).
Romney Obama
April/May 2012 7 39-42 – 3 7 51-44 + 7
March 2012 9 37-41 – 4 7 51-44 + 7
February 2012 10 36-46 -10 8 51-44 + 7
January 2012 12 35-40 – 5 5 48-46 + 2
December 2011 1 48-39 + 9 2 50-47 + 3
November 2011 6 37-36 + 1 2 49-47 + 2
October 2011 4 39-36 + 3 3 50-46 + 4
September 2011 4 35-31 + 4 5 47-46 + 1
August 2011 3 38-25 +13 5 50-46 + 4
Obama’s fav/unfavs are remarkably steady during this ten-month period. In 44 polls between August 2011 and May 2012, they average out to 50-45. That’s a positive rating, but not hugely positive. In the 14 polls taken in September and October 2010, Obama’s fav/unfavs were almost identical, 49-44, but in November his party lost the House popular vote by a 52%-45% margin.
Romney’s fav/unfavs have oscillated pretty wildly. The following table shows the average for three periods, from September 2011 until mid-January 2012, when Romney started getting lambasted in campaigning for the South Carolina primary; from mid-January 2012 until mid-April, when Rick Santorum suspended his campaign and Romney became the presumptive nominee, and from mid-April until mid-May.
Mid-April-May 2012 6 40-41 – 1 6 50-45 + 5
Mid-Apr-mid-Jan 2012 23 35-46 -11 19 51-44 + 7
Sept 2011-mid-Jan 2012 18 38-36 + 2 19 49-46 + 3
From September 2011 to mid-January 2012, Romney was less well known than he is today; one-quarter of respondents expressed neither favorable nor unfavorable feelings toward him. In the hurly-burly of the primaries, Romney clearly took on baggage. Since mid-April he seems to have recovered, with higher favs and lower unfavs. In the meantime there has been little change in Obama’s fav/unfavs, and the gap between them has been substantially narrowed. That’s based on only six polls and should be regarded as a tentative conclusion. But if it’s backed up by further polling, it’s an indication that Romney is closing the likeability gap and that Barack Obama cannot count on winning reelection because of the unpopularity of his opponent.
