Poll: voters in swing states no better off after Obama term

It's one more reason for the president to sweat.

According to a new Gallup poll, a majority of voters in 12 key swing states say life is the same or worse than it was in 2008, just before Obama took office on the promise of positive change.

Among nearly 1,000 voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin, 36 percent of Democrats, 50 percent of Independents, and 84 percent of Republicans - a combined 55 percent of respondents - said life was no better for having Obama in the White House.

While some of this discontent may be tied to the deep recession in 2008 and 2009, the recovery years have not treated Obama any better. According to Gallup data, responses to the "better off" question have essentially flatlined in the last nine months. Sixty percent of voters said they were no better off since 2008 in Nov. 2011, compared to nearly 56 percent now; while 37 percent said in Nov. 2011 that they had seen improvement in the last three years, compared to 40 percent now.

With the new Romney-Ryan team going on the offensive in swing states and recent surveys showing that 2008 Democratic voters are defecting from Obama at greater rates than their Republican counterparts, Democratic supporters may be in for yet another barrage of desperate fundraising emails in the coming days.