Polls: Obama leads Romney going into presidential race

Mitt Romney basically clinched the Republican nomination after Santorum's suspension of his campaign on Tuesday, but Obama is still ahead of the GOP candidate in two new polls. 

Both an Investor's Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor/TIPP poll and a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Tuesday show President Obama in the lead in a match-up with Romney.  

According to TIPP, 46 percent of the 1,164 people surveyed said they support President Obama, while just 38 percent favored Romney. Obama is also beating Romney among female voters 48 to 35 percent, the Daily Beast reported. 

The Washington Post poll, which surveyed 1,103 adults, found that 51 percent of registered voters would vote for the president and 44 percent for the former Massachusetts governor if a general election were held now. 

More from GlobalPost: Women voters favor Obama over Romney, new Gallup poll shows (VIDEO)

Obama has an edge over Romney in terms of who would do a better job protecting the middle class, addressing women’s issues, handling international affairs and dealing with health care, according to the Washington Post. 

The President also has over a 2-to-1 advantage as the more friendly and likable of the two candidates, and nearly that margin as "more inspiring," the Post reported. 

However, on the economy and jobs, arguably two of the upcoming election's most important issues, about as many voters trust Romney to handle the economic crisis and unemployment as Obama, according to the Post. 

The poll was taken April 5-8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points on the full sample, according to Bloomberg. General elections are won on a state-by-state basis, so the national figures aren’t necessarily predictive of the outcome, Bloomberg points out.