President Obama leads Mitt Romney as both candidates’ negative ratings climb, poll shows

By Callum Borchers, Globe Correspondent

President Obama leads Republican challenger Mitt Romney by 6 percentage points, but both men face growing unfavorable ratings in the midst of a largely negative campaign, according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The survey showed Obama leading Romney, 49 percent to 43 percent, among registered voters -- a slight change from last month’s poll, which put the president’s lead at 47-44.

But 32 percent of survey respondents said they have “very negative” views of Obama, a 5-point increase since June and an all-time high for the president. Overall, the president’s positive ratings outweigh his negative ratings by 6 points.

Romney’s negative ratings outweigh his positives by 5 points, the poll showed, and 24 percent of registered voters have very negative views of Romney, also an all-time high.

No Republican nominee since 1996 has entered his nominating convention with an overall negative rating, NBC reported.

In a dozen swing states, Obama leads Romney by 8 points, 49 percent to 41 percent, according to the poll. The swing states were Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Romney leads the president by 2 points among those who said they are most interested in the election.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, released late Tuesday night, was conducted between July 18 and 22 and included 1,000 registered voters. Its margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.