Poll: Both trail, but Romney better than Santorum against Obama

A spate of new tracking polls from Rasmussen show encouraging signs for President Obama's reelection chances, with the president hitting 50 percent approval among likely voters and leading both Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups.

But Romney is once again outperforming Santorum when faced up against the president, providing the former Massachusetts governor a boost in an increasingly important electability argument he must make against the former Pennsylvania senator, according to a poll released Monday by Rasmussen.

Obama leads Romney 48 percent to 42 percent in a hypothetical match-up, for a net lead of six percentage points. But faced up against Santorum, Obama leads 49 percent to 41 percent, giving him an eight-point edge.

That's the first time Romney has outperformed Santorum in the poll's hypothetical head-to-head contests since Feb. 3, the day after Romney said he was not concerned about "very poor" Americans because they had a social safety net.

In a blog post accompanying the poll results, Rasmussen notes that Romney is the only candidate to have led the president for more than one poll.

"Romney is the only Republican to lead the president in more than one poll during 2011 and 2012. However, he has not had a lead over President Obama since late December," Rasmussen writes.

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