Politics

Obama up five over Romney in latest Fox News poll

Alexis Levinson Political Reporter
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With less than six weeks to go before the election, a Fox News poll released Thursday has President Barack Obama leading Republican contender Mitt Romney by five points.

Forty-eight percent of likely voters said that if the election were held today, they would vote for the Democratic ticket, while 43 percent said they would vote for Romney and Paul Ryan. The numbers remain unchanged from the last time Fox polled earlier in September, which was the first time Obama had pulled ahead of Romney. 7 percent of likely voters said they remained undecided.

The poll of 1,208 likely voters, surveyed by live telephone interviewers from September 24 to September 26, adds to a growing body of polls showing Obama ahead.

This is the first time Fox has polled since Romney’s videotaped comments at a fundraiser went public — where he told donors that 47 percent of Americans did not pay federal income taxes and were “dependent” on government, and saw themselves as “victims” who were “entitled” to government services. Democrats have used the recording in several attack ads, but the poll found that 36 percent of likely voters found the statement to be “mostly true,” and 27 percent believed it to be “somewhat true.” Only 28 percent said it was “not at all true.”

Asked whether they believed the average American was dependent on government services, 29 percent said the average american was “highly dependent,” and 47 percent believed that person was “somewhat dependent,” while just 18 percent that the average American was “only slightly dependent,” and only three percent said that person was “not at all dependent.”

But when asked to rate their own dependency, 37 percent of likely voters said they were “not at all” dependent, 30 percent called themselves slightly dependent, 22 percent called themselves somewhat dependent, and only 9 percent called themselves highly dependent.

The Fox sample was 41 percent Democrats, 37 percent Republicans, 20 percent independents, and one percent declined to specify.

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