PRINCETON, NJ -- More Americans continue to hold strongly negative than strongly positive views of both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. This has been the case for much of the campaign to date, on the basis of Gallup's Positive Intensity Score, the net of strongly favorable opinions minus strongly unfavorable opinions of each candidate. Since December, Romney's scores have trended more negative and Obama's more positive.

The latest update on Positive Intensity Scores is from June 1-4 Gallup polling. Currently, 22% of Americans have a strongly positive view of Obama and 25% a strongly negative one, yielding a score of -3 for him. Romney's -7 score is based on 11% strongly favorable and 18% strongly unfavorable opinions.

Obama elicits a greater share of strong opinions in both positive and negative directions than does Romney. In total, 47% of Americans have a strong opinion of Obama, compared with 29% for Romney.

Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that Obama engenders more intensely positive feeling from his own party's supporters than Romney does from his. Obama's +36 Positive Intensity Score among Democrats, including independents who lean to the Democratic Party, is nearly double Romney's +19 among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

Romney's score among Republicans is down just slightly from the +21 he registered in the days after Rick Santorum ended his campaign for the Republican nomination, making Romney the presumptive nominee. Prior to attaining that status, Romney's Positive Intensity Scores among his fellow Republicans were in the low double digits.

Obama's scores among Democrats have likewise stabilized at a slightly higher level than was seen at earlier points in the campaign.

Romney's scores among Democrats are holding steady, even as he has shifted his campaign to the general election contest against Obama. In June, his intensity score among Democrats is -31, compared with -30 in April. But from a longer-term perspective, Democrats have grown more intensely negative toward Romney as it has become increasingly likely he would be Obama's opponent.

Republicans continue to show a much greater degree of strongly negative opinion toward Obama than Democrats do toward Romney.

Implications

Americans with strongly negative opinions of Romney or Obama continue to outnumber those with strongly positive opinions. When the strength of opinion is not taken into account, however, views of both Romney (44% favorable and 42% unfavorable) and Obama (52% favorable, 43% unfavorable) are more positive than negative overall.

Intensity of opinion matters, because in theory those who have stronger opinions are more likely to act on those opinions, which in the election context means voting. Indeed, Gallup finds a higher percentage of those with strong opinions of either Romney or Obama saying they "definitely will vote" than is the case for those without strong opinions.

In an election in which an incumbent is running, opinions about the incumbent may matter more than opinions about his opponent. Currently, those who have strongly positive opinions of Obama are about equally as likely as those who have strongly negative opinions of him to say they will definitely vote this fall (90% and 87%, respectively).

Thus, one key to the election going forward will be whether Americans' strongly negative opinions of Obama continue to exceed strongly positive opinions of him.

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