Obama 50%, Palin 33%

Will she or won’t she? Sarah Palin has a busy schedule leading up to a major public event in Iowa on September 3, and Republican insider Karl Rove predicts she’s about to enter the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

If Election Day was right now, President Obama would defeat the former Alaska governor 50% to 33%, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. This marks the first time that the president has risen out of the 40s in hypothetical matchups with any of the major GOP presidential hopefuls. Fifteen percent (15%) prefer some other candidate, and two percent (2%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

Last month, Obama posted a 47% to 38% lead over Palin, the GOP’s unsuccessful vice presidential candidate in 2008.

Palin earns support from 62% of Republicans, while 88% of Democrats back the president. Voters not affiliated with either party prefer Obama by a 51% to 30% margin.

Obama holds a narrow 44% to 38% lead over Palin among male voters, but women prefer the incumbent by a sizable 56% to 29% margin.

Ninety-one percent (91%) of the Political Class favors Obama given this matchup, while Mainstream voters are evenly divided.

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The match-up surveys of 1,000 Likely Voters were conducted August 11-12, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error for the surveys is +/- 3% with a 95% level of confidence.  Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.