Poll: Obama Would Lose to Romney or Huckabee in 2012, But Still Bests Palin

(Nov. 4) -- On your marks, get set...prognosticate!

Though the dust is still settling on the 2010 midterm elections, pollsters are already at work sizing up the impact of the Republican electoral landslide on the still hypothetical races to come in 2012. According to a new CNN/Opinion research poll, President Obama may be looking at a first term ouster if one of two likely Republican challengers decide to run against him.

Were the election were held today, Mike Huckabee would beat Obama by a not-inconsiderable margin of 52-44 percent and Mitt Romney would best the president by a margin of 50-45 percent, the poll finds.

Meanwhile, somewhat surprisingly, two GOP standard bearers would lose (if you believe surveys conducted two long years in advance of the actual contest): Sarah Palin trails Obama by a margin of 52-44 percent, and Newt Gingrich would be bested 49-47 percent.

None of the presumed Republican hopefuls has actually confirmed hopping into the race officially, yet. Palin, however, has indicated that she would do so in the rather unlikely event that "there's nobody else to do it," despite the fact that there almost certainly will be another GOP challenger, and that Karl Rove thinks she lacks the "gravitas" to make it to the White House.

As for the question of just how accurate polls are -- it's worth pointing out that this year's numbers for the midterm elections turned out to be wildly off -- with congressional contests turning out to be much closer than the polls reflected. As the Huffington Post's Mark Blumenthal notes, operations such as Rasmussen, Gallup, Fox, and CNN all turned in numbers that exaggerated Republican support.

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