'Renewed' US economic slowdown yet to dent Obama's standing in polls

Washington, July 7 (ANI): Even as the US economy is slowing down, it is yet to hamper President Barack Obama's standings in the polls ahead of the fall's coveted presidential election .

According to the Los Angeles Times, in Gallup's daily tracking poll, Obama and Republican Mitt Romney were essentially tied from the third week of April until the middle of last week when Obama opened a small lead, and while other polls disagree about the relative placement of the two candidates, all show the same overall pattern with no major movement despite the worsening economic climate.

With another 80,000 net new jobs created in US last month, Obama's apparent ability to defy economic gravity highlighted some key electoral realities: partisanship trumps statistics, national figures may be tempered by those in battleground states and undecided voters tend to tune out much of what happens in campaigns, the paper said.

Earlier this year, when the economy seemed to be gaining strength, Obama appeared to benefit, but that rise mostly came from Democrats who seized on the improving economic data to rally around a president they already were inclined to support, the paper added.

For now, however, both Obama and Romney appear to be largely preaching to the converted, while on the economy, partisanship strongly colors how people perceive news and the context in which they place it, it concluded. (ANI)