Right now, it appears the best hope for the Democrats in 2012 is that the Republicans will nominate Sarah Palin. And this was a CNN poll, folks. Not Fox News .

Obama would lose to both Huckabee or Romney in 2012 White House race: poll

By CLEMENTE LISI

President Obama's Democratic party lost the midterm elections this week and he could very well lose his bid for a second term in 2012, according to a shocking poll released today.

Obama would lose in a hypothetical race against former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee 52 percent to 44 percent, according to CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would also defeat Obama 50 percent to 45 percent in the race for the White House in 2012.

Neither Huckabee nor Romney have said whether they will run for president after both were defeated by Arizona Sen. John McCain in the 2008 GOP presidential primary.

While there is no clear GOP frontrunner after the Republicans swept to power in the House on Tuesday, 21 percent of Republicans said they're most likely to back Huckabee and 20 percent said they would back Romney.

Only 14 percent favored ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and 12 percent said they'd back former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In another possible showdown, Obama leads Palin 52 percent to 44 percent among all registered voters.

"Looking ahead to 2012, it may be too early to count Barack Obama out, particularly if Sarah Palin is his opponent," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The former Alaska governor gets a lot of attention, but she is in third place when Republicans are asked to pick a presidential nominee, and in a hypothetical matchup with Obama she is arguably the weakest candidate of the top-tier GOP hopefuls."

This comes as the poll also found that three-quarters of those who are registered Democrats said they want to see the party renominate Obama in 2012.

"No incumbent president has faced a significant primary challenge and gone on to win re-election in November," said Holland. "Contested primaries make incumbents look weak and overly-political, and prevent the incumbent from building up goodwill while the opposition party candidates are fighting among themselves."

Avoiding a primary challenge won't guarantee Obama victory in November 2012, but having the support of 73 percent of Democrats may scare off any Democrats who are contemplating a run against him.

The poll of 1,006 adult Americans, of which 921 were registered voters, was conducted by phone during the last week of October.

CNN said the sample also included 500 respondents who describe themselves as Republicans or independents who lean Republican and 453 respondents who describe themselves as Democrats or independents who lean Democratic.

The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/pr...L#ixzz14QZTduXj