Poll: Mitt Romney only Republican that can beat Obama

Improving greatly over last week’s poll, Mitt Romney is the only Republican candidate in the latest Rasmussen polls to do better than Obama and he has the largest lead of any named candidate in this race.

In the previous week’s poll, Obama had held a 3 point lead over the former New Hampshire governor. This week, Romney takes a 6% lead over the President.

Each of the candidates were polled directly against Obama in a separate poll for each one. All but one of the polls were held from December 2nd for Huntsman up to December 28th for Romney. The one older poll is for Gary Johnson who has now dropped his candidacy for the GOP nomination.

Romney shows high favorability with men, but woman would choose the current President by a 6 point margin. His lead with independents is a significant 16 points over Obama.

Considering Romney’s centrist positions, poor scoring with gun rights groups, confusing stances on the right to life and a willingness to impose a health care mandate on a governed population, it may be some surprise that Romney is still able to command a 75%-25% lead over the president. The 50 point lead may be less about Romney and more a demonstration of the feeling on the right that they would vote for “anybody but Obama” (a.k.a ABO).

In his latest match-up with the president, Romney holds a 20-point lead among male voters but trails by six among female voters. The Republican posts a 45% to 29% lead among voters not affiliated with either of the major political parties.

Not surprisingly, the 10% of Americans who trust politicians more than citizens favor Obama with 65% while main street voters would choose the Republican 51% of the time and Obama a paltry 31%