President Obama and Mitt Romney are tied in a national head-to-head match-up, according to the latest survey from conservative polling outlet Rasmussen.

Each pulled 45 percent, while Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R) edged Obama 44 to 43 in the daily tracking poll.



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The Rasmussen poll could be an outlier — most recent polls show Obama leading Romney nationally, and a number of polls in March showed the president stretching his lead to double digits.The Real Clear Politics average of polls, which includes Thursday’s Rasmussen tie, shows the president with a 5.3 percent lead.However, when Romney’s primary GOP rival Rick Santorum pulled out of the race earlier this week, Republicans and Democrats alike marked the occasion as the beginning of the Obama-Romney general election.If other national polls in the upcoming weeks also show the race tightening, it could be a sign that Republicans have taken to rallying around their presumptive nomine, for what most analysts believe will be a tight race that will be determined by a handful of critical battleground states.

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