PRINCETON, NJ -- Six weeks into Gallup's Daily tracking of the U.S. presidential election, the race remains highly stable, both overall and within demographic groups. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are tied, 46% to 46%, among the more than 9,000 registered voters interviewed from May 7-27, exactly as they were in the previous three-week period.

Although the average vote choice between Obama and Romney has varied slightly in Gallup's seven-day rolling averages over the last six weeks, the larger three-week aggregates show no broad trends in one direction or the other.

Race, Politics, Religion Strongly Related to Vote Preferences

The May 7-27 aggregate shows that Obama continues to do particularly well among blacks, Hispanics, and nonwhites more generally, as well as among Democrats, liberals, and those who are not religious. Romney does particularly well among Republicans, conservatives, those who are highly religious, non-Catholic Christians, those who are married, older voters, and whites. Complete trends by subgroup for rolling three-week periods, including sample sizes for each subgroup, are available each week on Gallup.com.

Romney performs well among most subgroups of whites, as would be expected, given the strong relationship between race and vote preference. But Obama retains an edge among whites who are non-Christian or nonreligious, those who have never been married or are living with a domestic partner, and those with a postgraduate education.

Little Change in Support Among Subgroups

Subgroup preferences are little changed in the May 7-27 aggregate compared with April 11-May 6 interviewing -- reflecting the stability seen among all registered voters.

Although the Obama minus Romney "gap" has moved slightly over time in some instances, most of these movements are not substantively meaningful. Some news accounts have focused on possible changes and shifts in the vote preferences of women, but the comparison of these broad samples shows that women have not changed their vote intentions in any meaningful way.

One pattern, though, is worth noting: Voters who are less religious have shifted more toward Obama between these two periods, a trend that will need to be monitored in the weeks ahead.

Implications

To this point, all of the campaign events and rhetoric in the presidential election do not appear to have influenced voter preferences much. The two major-party candidates were tied last month, and remain tied today.

Both candidates will be working hard to change that situation in the three crucial summer months ahead, spending millions in advertising, participating in virtually nonstop campaign events and speeches, and pushing grass-roots efforts to mobilize voters.

There are no official campaign events until the Republican convention gets underway in Tampa on Aug. 27, followed by the Democratic convention in Charlotte in early September. Romney will be able to attract some attention with his vice presidential announcement -- and no doubt those on his campaign team will attempt to make that announcement when they believe it will have the maximum impact. Both candidates' campaigns will have to deal with the distraction of the July 27-Aug. 12 London Summer Olympics, when voters may pay less attention to political news.

The presidential campaign will also be affected by factors outside of either candidate's control, particularly the economy. Current trends on that front are at least slightly in Obama's favor, based on Gallup's ongoing measure of economic confidence, which shows that Americans are as positive now as they have been at any time since Daily tracking of that measure began in January 2008. Additionally, events in Europe and elsewhere around the world could affect the campaign, although new Gallup polling to be released Thursday suggests that the average American is not paying unusually close attention to the economic crisis in Europe at this point.

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