Obama is back up in Florida, poll finds

Source: The Wall Street Journal

In the topsy turvy world of early summer polls, President Barack Obama is back up again in Florida thanks in large part to an unusual resurgence in support among the state's independent voters.

A new poll by Quinnipiac University found Obama leading his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, 46 percent to 42 percent among all Florida voters. The poll revealed a nearly 10 percentage point swing in the two men's support since the same pollsters surveyed the state in May.

Much of that shift was driven by sharp swing among independents, who backed Romney 44 percent to 36 percent but now sided with Obama, 47 percent to 41 percent.

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said the shift may have had something to do with Obama's decision to back gay marriage last month. The university's last poll came just days after that decision, and "might have hurt him at the time," Brown said.

The pollsters noted that Obama remains strong among the coalition of voters that pushed him over the top in Florida in 2008. He leads by 10 percentage points among women and Hispanics and 27 percentage points among voters under 34. Romney leads by 13 percentage points among white voters and five percentage points among all voters over 55 years old.

Romney won the Florida primary handily in January, but a series of Quinnipiac polls of the state have found that voters have actually cooled on his candidacy since then. In late January, 44 percent of Floridians had a favorable opinion of the former Massachusetts governor. That fell to 39 percent in the latest poll.

The Quinnipiac poll of 1,697 registered voters in Florida had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percent.

Read More: Obama is back up in Florida, poll finds