Less than a week after Gov. Mitt Romney added Rep. Paul Ryan to the GOP ticket, Romney is moving to slight leads in a pair of swing states according to Rasmussen.
In Florida, the Ryan pick, which many moderate Republicans fret will turn off senior voters, the Romney campaign now leads by two points, 45-43. The Ryan pick has also shored up Romney’s lead among a key demographic in the state: Senior voters.
Retirees are a sizable bloc of voters in Florida, and Democrats are already criticizing Ryan’s Medicare reform proposal in an effort to win those voters. But 48% of the state’s voters fear the president’s health care law more than Ryan’s proposal when it comes to the future of Medicare. Just 41% fear Ryan’s proposal more.
Among seniors, 54% are more fearful of the president’s plan.
Romney now holds a 24-point lead over Obama among Florida voters 65 and older. Last month, the GOP challenger held a 17-point lead in this age group.
The Obama campaign could find itself forced into a debate over Medicare that will end up exposing the fact that the Democrats raided Medicare to fund ObamaCare.
In Wisconsin, Romney has moved to a very slim one-point lead over President Obama, 48-47.Wisconsin tends to flirt with Republicans in presidential elections before breaking their hearts on election day, but Gov. Scott Walker’s smashing victory over the Big Labor/Democrat machine in this year’s recall may have cracked up the state’s politics.
Purple Strategies also found that the Ryan pick has helped Romney to slight leads this week in Ohio and Virginia. That poll found that while the Democrats have tried to paint Ryan as a “radical,” he is the most liked of the four candidates.
The contrast between Ryan’s obvious intelligence and sunny outlook, against Vice President Joseph Biden’s obvious race-baiting and consistent confusion over which state he is in and which century we live in, cannot have been lost on voters who are paying attention to the presidential race.
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