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The latest polls all point to the same thing: that the 2012 elections will be fought almost entirely over approximately 6% of American voters.

Almost two weeks ago, the Washington Post put out a poll which showed that 46% of registered voters will definitely not vote for Barack Obama in 2012. Today’s Gallup poll bears that out.

Gallup asked registered voters about potential Obama match-ups against Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul. If we use that 46% as a baseline of support for Republican candidates, we can see that Romney outperforms by 2% and Perry by 1% while Paul underperforms by 1% and Bachmann by 2%. That is pretty much reflective of the current state of polling within the GOP field with Romney and Perry leading the pack while Paul and Bachmann are a distant third and fourth.

On the flip side of that equation, Obama can’t get above 48% against even the weakest Republican candidate and garners only 46% against the strongest. Given that neither Bachmann nor Paul have realistic shots at the nomination and both are underperforming the “Anybody But Obama” vote, we can safely toss those last two results and focus strictly on the Romney and Perry match-ups. There, Obama is either at 46% against a fairly well-known Republican candidate or 47% against a candidate who announced his candidacy all of eight days ago and isn’t particularly well known.

So what we’re looking at is that the current polling for president is Obama at 46-47 and Republicans at 47-48. And that’s a poll of “registered voters,” not “likely voters.” As we’ve discussed before, that poll filter favors Democrats by a net of 4%, so the reality is that - if an election were held today – Obama would probably lose by either 4 or 5% depending on who the opposing candidate was.

[Note that the difference between "National Adults" in the Gallup poll and "Registered Voters" is a net Democratic preference of 3-4%. This is precisely what we had previously explained should be expected when applying the two different filters.]

In both match-ups, there are only 6% of voters who are undecided. That’s where this election is going to be fought. Who are these 6%?

Are they disaffected liberals still looking for a reason to “come home”? If so, then if Obama can convince almost all of them to do so, then he can potentially eke out a slim margin of victory.

Are they conservatives not yet sold on a candidate? If so, then we’re looking at the possibility of a blowout win by the Republican candidate if they break heavily for the Republican candidate.

Or are they the “squishy middle” who tend to “go with the flow” and tend to break fairly evenly on Election Day? If so, then Obama likely loses in a relatively close election.

We don’t have enough information from either the Gallup or Washington Post polls to know who those undecideds are. But one thing is certain: those 6% are the ones who ultimately will make the difference in 2012.