Sudan Declares War on South Sudan - The Mark

With Rick Santorum ending his run for the presidency last week to spend some time with his family, that leaves Mitt Romney as the presumptive heir to the Republican nomination. And since no one in their right minds sees either Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich stealing that crown from Romney, we've just entered the world's most fertile grounds for satire, insanity, and armchair-campaign-managing: the race for the White House. No race is complete, of course, without polls, so let's see what they're saying today:

First off, we recommend you swing by The New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog for a handy primer on just what to expect in your poll-watching this election season. All of it's worth a read, but keep this in mind as you hear the pundits dusting off juicy little statistics that sound more like baseball data than political stats:

There have been only 16 presidential elections since World War II. That simply isn’t a lot of data, and overly specific conclusions from them, like “no recent president has been re-elected with an unemployment rate over 8.0 percent” or “no recent incumbent has lost when he did not face a primary challenge,” are often not very meaningful in practice and will generally not carry much predictive weight.

According to the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Barack Obama holds a four-point lead over Romney, 47 per cent to 43 per cent. That's a fair bit down from Obama's lead in early March, when the same poll showed Obama leading the former Massachusetts governor by 11 points, 52 per cent to 41 per cent. This newer poll shows that respondents also trust Romney on managing the economy slightly more than Obama, 45 per cent to 43 (a difference within the margin of error), and that the economy is the chief issue for 53 per cent of voters.

CNN, on the other hand, has Obama with a nine-point lead over Romney, 52 per cent to 43 per cent. The incumbent also boasted a significant lead among female voters. Some 55 per cent of female respondents said they supported Obama, versus just 39 per cent for Romney, who really wasn't helped by the Republican campaign's obsession over birth control, abortion, and a certain candidate's belief that women were duped into wanting to work by "radical feminists." Obama was also deemed more likely to "stand up for what he believes in" (50 per cent vs. 29 per cent), more likable (56 per cent to 27 per cent), a more decisive leader (50 per cent to 34 per cent), and less likely to change his mind on issues for political issues (39 per cent to 47 per cent). In short, the Romney campaign has its work cut out for them in convincing voters that the blue-blooded multimillionaire who traipses around with NFL and NASCAR team owners but pays less in taxes than his secretary really is just like you.

And as with any American election, it's best to keep an eye on RealClearPolitics' poll average, which takes the latest data from eight different polls and averages it all out to arrive at a more accurate reading of voter intent over the course of the campaign. That average suggests that Obama has a 3.2 percentage point lead over Romney, 47.3 per cent to 44.1 per cent.

With Rick Santorum ending his run for the presidency last week to spend some time with his family, that leaves Mitt Romney as the presumptive heir to the Republican nomination. And since no one in their right minds sees either Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich stealing that crown from Romney, we've just entered the world's most fertile grounds for satire, insanity, and armchair-campaign-managing: the race for the White House. No race is complete, of course, without polls, so let's see what they're saying today:

First off, we recommend you swing by The New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog for a handy primer on just what to expect in your poll-watching this election season. All of it's worth a read, but keep this in mind as you hear the pundits dusting off juicy little statistics that sound more like baseball data than political stats:

There have been only 16 presidential elections since World War II. That simply isn’t a lot of data, and overly specific conclusions from them, like “no recent president has been re-elected with an unemployment rate over 8.0 percent” or “no recent incumbent has lost when he did not face a primary challenge,” are often not very meaningful in practice and will generally not carry much predictive weight.

According to the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Barack Obama holds a four-point lead over Romney, 47 per cent to 43 per cent. That's a fair bit down from Obama's lead in early March, when the same poll showed Obama leading the former Massachusetts governor by 11 points, 52 per cent to 41 per cent. This newer poll shows that respondents also trust Romney on managing the economy slightly more than Obama, 45 per cent to 43 (a difference within the margin of error), and that the economy is the chief issue for 53 per cent of voters.

CNN, on the other hand, has Obama with a nine-point lead over Romney, 52 per cent to 43 per cent. The incumbent also boasted a significant lead among female voters. Some 55 per cent of female respondents said they supported Obama, versus just 39 per cent for Romney, who really wasn't helped by the Republican campaign's obsession over birth control, abortion, and a certain candidate's belief that women were duped into wanting to work by "radical feminists." Obama was also deemed more likely to "stand up for what he believes in" (50 per cent vs. 29 per cent), more likable (56 per cent to 27 per cent), a more decisive leader (50 per cent to 34 per cent), and less likely to change his mind on issues for political issues (39 per cent to 47 per cent). In short, the Romney campaign has its work cut out for them in convincing voters that the blue-blooded multimillionaire who traipses around with NFL and NASCAR team owners but pays less in taxes than his secretary really is just like you.

And as with any American election, it's best to keep an eye on RealClearPolitics' poll average, which takes the latest data from eight different polls and averages it all out to arrive at a more accurate reading of voter intent over the course of the campaign. That average suggests that Obama has a 3.2 percentage point lead over Romney, 47.3 per cent to 44.1 per cent.