Early voters seen favouring Obama win

Polls also show early voting likely to play bigger role in this election than 2008


WASHINGTON] US President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are neck and neck in opinion polls, but there is one area in which the incumbent appears to have a big advantage: those who have already cast their ballots.

Mr Romney led Mr Obama by 1 percentage point, 46 to 45 per cent, among likely voters in the Reuters/Ipsos daily online tracking poll released on Friday. But Reuters/Ipsos polling data compiled in recent weeks show Mr Obama leading Mr Romney by 59 per cent to 31 per cent among early voters.

The sample size of early voters is relatively small, but the Democrat's margin is still well above the poll's credibility interval - a measurement of polls' accuracy - of 10 percentage points.



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George Mason University professor Michael McDonald, an expert on early voting, said it was difficult to tell how the results so far could affect the outcome of the race. In North Carolina and Maine, Democrats seem to be voting in higher numbers than 2008, while Republicans seem to be voting in slightly lower numbers than four years ago, he said. In Iowa, about twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans have voted by now - a potential warning sign for the Romney campaign, he said.


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