Oh my! Look who's tied with Obama in the new PPP poll... (Updated)

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Hot off of Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:

With President Obama's approval rating hitting new lows, a new Public Policy Polling survey shows him trailing several Republicans in a 2012 presidential match ups.

The PPP survey shows the president behind Romney by 3 (46-43), Huckabee by 2 (47-45), Gingrich by 1 (46-45) and tied with Sarah Palin at 46-46. The intervals for all four potential GOP candidates are within the poll's 3.8 percent margin of error, so essentially all are tied with Obama.

This is quite a turnaround from PPP's poll from last year, in which Obama led Romney by 11 (50-39), Gingrich by 13 (52-39), Huckabee by 7 (49-42) and Gov. Palin by 12 (53-41).

Considering that PPP methodology is to weight its samples in the Democrats' favor, this is the sort of news that will make the Obama political war room order Maalox by the case. PPP's Tom Jensen says there are two factors driving the shift in voter attitudes:

"The first is a lead with independents in every match up... The other thing causing the Republicans to do so well is that their party is unified around them to an equal or even greater extent than Democrats are around Obama."

Yes, it's still early, and all things political are subject to sudden change, depending on the daily news. But Team Obama has good reason to be worried and the Republicans every reason to be encouraged. The results have to be especially rewarding for Gov. Palin's supporters after she closed a 12-point gap with a sitting president in just a little over a year.

Update: Ed Morrissey's take:

The headline, though, is Sarah Palin’s dead heat with the President...

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In case one wonders whether PPP’s sample is to blame, the partisan split favors Democrats by five points, 39/34. That’s probably overstating the actual size of the gap and the percentage of Democrats in the general population, which means that the independents got short shrift as well. Also note that this poll surveyed registered voters, not likely voters — a sampling technique that would tend to favor Democrats and Obama a little more.

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For Palin, the numbers show she can play against Obama.

- JP