Basically the only benefit President Obama got from being trounced in the first debate is that it has significantly lowered exceptions for the second debate this evening. From Pew Research:

Mitt Romney’s strong performance in the debate has allowed him to grab the lead nationally according to the latest Pew Research poll. Last month Obama lead by eight points among likely voters but now Romney is up by four.

Things are looking very dark for Team Romney. Voters aren’t going to replace a president with a challenger they like less, they trust less and they think is less capable of addressing most of the important issues facing the country.

Pew Research is out with a new poll showing President Obama is leading by an impressive 10 point margin. According to the poll, it is 51 percent Obama compared to 41 percent Mitt Romney. This is a three point improvement since their last poll and the best performance for Obama since March.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the poll are the favorability numbers.

What I find most interesting about this Pew research poll is not that 13 percent feel uncomfortable about Mitt Romney’s faith but the fact that 40 percent don’t even know he is a Mormon.

By an almost two-to-one margin Americans think raising taxes on people making over $250,000 a year would both help the economy and make our tax system more fair. Democrats and Republicans split, but Independent side more with Democrats.

People will reject the incumbent, but only if they think that could lead to some improvements. It appears Mitt Romney is currently failing to cross even this rather law threshold.

When asked about 10 different issues and traits by Pew Research, voters gave President Obama the edge over Mitt Romney in every category except one: the economy.

Immigration from Mexico is down significantly thanks in large part to the poor economy in the United States. According to new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, recent net migration from Mexico is now zero. This fact should lessen the negative politics of immigration in the short run and affect projections of voting patterns in the long run.

The real turning point in Mitt Romney’s effort to secure the Republican nomination appears to have been his victory in Michigan, according to analysis by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.