Elections

Pollster: Economy’s next 30 days crucial to Obama re-election campaign

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
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Republican pollster Ed Goeas says the next thirty days are “going to be the most important thirty days of the framing” of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

“It takes six months of solid economic information for voters to come to the conclusion that we are in a positive growing economy,” Goeas said Thursday. “We are now at that precipice.”

The Tarrance Group pollster explained that “in the next thirty days, if we do not start getting consistent economic news — and that seems very unlikely — we will be running in an election that is about performance on the economy.”

The prediction came during a breakfast with reporters at the National Press Club, where the Republican-affiliated group Resurgent Republic made public the results of focus groups of independent voters who supported Obama in 2008.

During that breakfast former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Resurgent Republic’s honorary chairman, said key findings from those focus groups show that while these voters like Obama personally, they offer only minimal support for his policies.

These independent voters, the results showed, had mostly negative thoughts about the economy.

“The point is just because they think you’re a good person that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll vote for you,” Barbour said.

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