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President Obama -- the guy whose economic policies inspired the creation of the Tea Party -- is the guy more Americans trust, compared to Mitt Romney at least, to handle tax policy, a new poll from ABC News and The Washington Post finds. Just a few months ago, the slow economic recovery and a moderate Republican candidate led The New York Times' Nate Silver to declare Obama the underdog in 2012. But the president looks a little less doomed now. 52 percent of Americans trust Obama on taxes, compared to Romney's 42 percent, ABC's Gary Langer writes. And one datapoint in particular should bring particular glee to the Obama reelection team: a supermajority -- 66 percent -- of Americans think Romney doesn't pay enough in taxes.
When Silver made his widely-discussed forecast, the economy wasn't growing much, and Obama's approval rating was just 43 percent. He gave Romney a 58 percent chance of winning the general election if he secured the Republican nomination. But last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the GDP grew at a rate of 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. If you put that -- and Obama's 46 percent approval rating, according to Gallup -- into Silver's nifty election chances calculator, Romney has a 49 percent chance of winning. (The ABC News/Washington Post poll finds Obama's approval rating even higher, at 50 percent, which Silver had imagined coming only if Obama "finds a cure for cancer.")