Romney Losing Lead On Economic Issues

(Caricature above is by DonkeyHotey.)

For months now, in nearly every poll, the president has been rated significantly above Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) in nearly every area (foreign policy, likability, education, environment, etc.). There has only been one area where Romney has almost always outdistanced the president -- in who people thought would handle the economy better (including job creation). This was continuing good news for Romney, and gave him his only real hope of winning in November -- because nearly all the political pundits agree that the overriding issue in the presidential campaign is the economy.

But after all the news about Romney's actions at Bain Capital and his failed term as governor, even that one advantage may be disappearing for him. Here's how Greg Sargent describes this new phenomena in his Washington Post blog, The Plum Line:

Well, we now have four national polls that show Obama and Romneytied on the question — perhaps suggesting a potentially signfiicant shift in the race’s dynamics:

* The new Fox News poll shows Obama and Romney exactly tied at 46-46 on who would better improve the economy and create jobs.

* This week’s CNN poll finds Obama and Romney in a statistical tie, 50-49, on who would better handle the economy.

* This week’s Post poll finds Obama and Romney in a statistical tie, 47-45, on the same question.

* A Rasmussen poll on Tuesday found Obama and Romney at 47-45 on who is more trusted on job creation.

If the above polling is right, Romney may no longer be enjoying the built in advantage he seemed to have for months. That advantage was that more voters seemed willing to grant him the presumption of economic superiority because of his business background and because he represents an alternative to the chief executive they are disillusioned with due to the sluggishness of the recovery. Now, after both conventions, the two are tied in national polling on who can be more trusted to get the economy back on track.

That has to be worrying the Romney campaign. It means they are fast losing the only advantage that had in this election, as small as it was, and he could now be setting himself up for the same kind of landslide defeat suffered by McCain in 2008.

And now there is another poll showing that the belief Obama and the Democrats might be as good or better at running the economy than Romney and the Republicans. It's the new Gallup Poll, taken between September 6th and 9th. Just look at the graph below. It shows the public now gives the Democrats a 9 point edge on which party would do a better job of making the country prosperous.