full fledged congressional showdown with a tax hike for millions of americans hanging in the balance. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. this just coming in. our brand new poll numbers hitting pitting president obama against the republican candidate. the survey puts each toe to toe the president and even though the election is still almost 11 months away, the results still troubling for the gop. let s go inside the numbers with ron brownstein of the national journal. thanks very much for coming in. these numbers, hot, they re fresh right now. hypothetical match-ups between the president and the republican challengers out there. look at this. in a hypothetical match-up between president obama and mitt romney. right now, president obama would win 52 to 45%. margin of error, 3%, but he would still win national. those are some of the best numbers we have seen for president obama in any of the head to heads recently. seven points ahead of mitt romney, wider than