ago. the strategy seems to be to make sure that the president s supporters don t take his reelection for granted. there are really a couple of reasons why. first of all, we ve seen the president s approval ratings decline according to the latest abc news poll. romney beats president obama. that s something that messina references in that e-mail. that s in part due to the high price in gas and the other part is dollars and cents, chris. super pacs. if you look at the numbers from 2011, republican leaning super pacs far outraised democratic leading super pacs. because of the donations by the coke brothers. the president s reelection team trying to rally the troops and they re aware of the realities you heard the reference to spending at the end of that e-mail, that is certainly in part a reference to super pacs. trying to make sure that the president s supporters know that this is shaping up to be a pretty close race right now. chris sf.
glad to be with you. speaking of the facts, they speak for themselves. the dow had the highest point in more than four years. the nasdaq at an 11-year high. we have what s moving your money. mapped mandy, it s fun or not heart stopping to look at your retirement statement. that s so true. remember when you were scared to look at your 401(k)? the bull market ended the fourth year. starting from the march 2009 lows. the question now is how much room is there in this rally? the good news is that the rally is essentially being driven by solid fundamentals on the economic side, especially strong earnings and what a lot of people think are attractive values as opposed to, chris, massive amounts of stimulus being thrown at the markets. when you consider the stock market logged an average yearly gain of 7% for the past 65 years, the 100% rally move we ve seen in this equity market really is a big deal.
territory to solve his evangelical problem. romney did not win a primary when more than half the voters are evangelical, the red area on top. in romney s losses, both states had over 75% evangelical voters, 80% in mississippi s case. those are new highs as romney lost. let s look at three upcoming tests, missouri, louisiana and texas. all have evangelical voters in 2008 above 50% topping off at 60 there. this year s trend holds true, romney loses here. texas would be a major loss obviously with over 155 delegates. the total delegates of the five battles discussed is a huge chunk when we take a look at that. that is over 30% of the amount that is needed to take the nomination. one last one for you, chris, as we look forward. pennsylvania, a new quinnipiac poll hassan torm beating romney
we talked about this a little while ago. let me get you to update us on the situation with the president and the british prime minister. they re going to be holding a joint press conference at noon. what are we expecting there? sort of the central topics, i m expecting of that news conference, chris, will be afghanistan and iran and also possibly syria. of course, afghanistan, given the recent shootings there. the recent burnings of the koran has been a hot topic. there s a lot of pressure from folks within the uk and the u.s. to speed up the timeline of withdrawal. president obama has been adamant that s not going to happen. u.s. and uk troops expected to hand over the situation in afghanistan to afghan forces in 2014. there have certainly been a lot of questions this week about how that timeline might be impacted. that will be one of the main topics addressed. also, iran, president obama, prime minister cameron seemed to be on the same page when it comes to iran. they have been d
argument he has at this point. the republican primary base has gone way to the right. he is a northeastern moderate republican governor who is trying to pretend he s a severe conservative. no one is buying it. but he s getting just enough delegates to maintain his lead. i think he has no choice but to see this as the long slog and there s no message change. this guy has flipped around, flopped around so much in the last two years, any radical change would get to the core criticism against him, which is he s not who he is. so he has to he just bear down, take the arrows and sort of keeping walking along, bleeding and getting wounded. trying to cross that finish line with 50-plus delegates. i don t know. i think karen, to it s not going to be pretty, chris. it s been ugly. let s be clear about that. it s been ugly. i m not sure people buy newt gingrich s argument about $2.50 gas. they re having an effect on the president s approval rating.