Obama leading in America's swing states

Washington, Feb.16 (ANI): U.S. President Barack Obama leads each Republican contender in the swing states.

According to a new Fox News Swing State Poll, Obama leads Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich in swing-state match-ups by about the same margin as he does nationally.

Only Rick Santorum is doing better in swing states than in nation polling.

The registered-voter poll was conducted across 10 states where Obama had small margins of victory in 2008 and is considered decisive in the upcoming presidential election.

These swing states fall into three regional tiers.

The Rocky Mountain tier includes Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.

The Rust Belt tier includes Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The Dixie tier includes North Carolina, Florida and Virginia.

The swing-state voters back Obama over Romney by eight percentage points and Santorum by nine percentage points.

Obama tops Paul by 12 points in the poll. Gingrich lags farthest behind Obama, as voters in these key states prefer the president to the former Speaker by 20 points.

Overall, swing-state voters look much like the national electorate, as both give Obama mixed reviews on his job performance, are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, and remain pessimistic about the nations economy.

The Fox News Swing State Poll is based on live landline and cell phone interviews with registered voters in 10 states that are likely to be decisive in the 2012 presidential election.

The 1,200 interviews were conducted across the states and are proportional to their likely contribution to the total vote.

The poll was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw and Company Research (r) from Feb. 11 to Feb. 13, 2012.

It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. (ANI)