ABSTRACT
Barack Obama was perceived much more favorably than Mitt Romney in personal terms. He was seen as equal to Romney on assessments of leadership, which is a victory for a Democratic candidate. And he was viewed significantly more positively on the other three dimensions of character traits: competence, integrity, and empathy. Defection rates among both Democrats and Republicans were low, but those who did vote for the candidate of the other party were the ones who did not think so highly of the personal qualities of the candidate of their party, at least compared to the opponent. Voters who thought that Obama was doing a poor job of managing the economy or handling foreign affairs were less likely to see him as better than Romney on character traits. However, evaluations of Obama's performance were mixed: slightly less than one-half of the voters approved of his handling of the economy, and slightly more than one-half did so for foreign affairs.
