Obama Leads Likely Republican Challengers

From October 25 through November 4, 270toWin conducted a straw poll on the website, asking visitors their preference in various hypothetical 2012 general election match ups. The goal was to not only take the popular vote temperature, but also to translate the votes into an electoral map, to see how that might vary based on the match-ups.

In our straw poll (see disclaimer at bottom), President Obama received more votes than each of the 5 Republicans. The popular vote was close against Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, less so against the other 3 challengers.  Of course, we don't elect our presidents based on popular vote, but rather the electoral vote.   

Caution:  It is important to note that this is a non-scientific poll, meaning those who participated were not chosen at random, nor necessarily distributed in a way reflective of the population as a whole. At this early point in the election cycle, 270toWin draws an audience that is far more interested in politics and the election than the population at large. This audience's opinions about specific candidates or match-ups may not reflect that of the population at large. Furthermore, even if the poll were random, the number of participants in most states was too small to draw a statistically valid conclusion.