Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Obama below 50 but beats Palin

Barack Obama's approval rating in North Carolina has crept below 50% for the first time. 49% of voters in the state now give him good marks for his performance with 44% disapproving.

Obama's approval has been between 49 and 54% in the state over the last six months of PPP's polls. His main drop in the last month has come among independents. Where before they gave him good reviews by a margin of 49/43, they are now evenly split in their assessments of Obama at 44.

79% of Democrats but only 10% of Republicans approve of him.

The state might not be as enthused about Obama as it was earlier in his term but he is still preferred to Sarah Palin. 46% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of her, with 44% holding a positive one. Those numbers are largely unchanged from last fall when 41% said John McCain's selection of her made them less likely to vote for him, while 39% said her presence on the ticket made them more inclined to cast a GOP vote.

Pitted head to head, Obama leads Palin 49-42. That would be the best performance for a Democrat in the state since Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford by 11 points in 1976.

Obama has definitely seen a small decline in his popularity but keeping things in perspective, his approval is 14 points better than George W. Bush's 35% at this time two years ago. He's been able to sustain his base during his first six months in office, and if he's able to show any progress on the economy he should be able to regain some of the soft independent support he's lost in the last few months.

Full results here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom,

It seems like Palin is doing pretty well with moderate Republicans here in terms of favorables and in the matchup with Obama. There seems to be a great split between conservatives she wins versus the percentage of Republicans she wins. The Republican number is significantly higher. That tells me that she doens't have an issue with moderate Republicans in your home state.

The problem for her in North Carolina seems to be conservative Democrats and indies. Her conservative number in this poll is lower than the numbers you have found for her in your nationwide polling among conservatives. I suspect she's not polling very well with conservative dems or indies.

Am I reading the poll correctly?

Anonymous said...

Tom,

If you can, give the breakdown for her favorables/unfavorables and the Obama mathcup for:

Conservative Democrats
Conservative Indies
Moderate Republicans

Anonymous said...

By the way, Schuler probably should have taken up Palin on her "offer" don't you think?

His district is comprised of rural whites. Looking at your numbers, if I were Schuler I wouldn't want anything to do with Barack Obama.

Tom Jensen said...

If Shuler ever wants to run for Governor or Senate and win a Democratic primary he can't have had Palin in to campaign for him. Not to mention that he's probably got that House seat for as long as he wants it anyway.

Conservative Democrats, Obama leads 58-25, Palin numbers are 31/50.

Conservative independents, Palin leads 73-17, her numbers are 67/21.

Moderate Republicans, Palin leads 79-13, her numbers are 63/22.

Anonymous said...

So Tom,

You still don't think she can the nomination. She's pulling in 60% + among the moderate crowd in states as diverse as North Carolina and Minnesota in addition to her 83% approval from conservative Republicans (I'm guessing her conservative Republican favorables in NC are over 83%).

It seems that she has the broadest base among Republicans (though perhaps at this moment, the least broad base of the general electorate) of the three guys you have polled her with against Obama.

Anonymous said...

Tom,

What percentage of conservative Democrats do you think she would need to win to beat Obama in the state?

25% of conservative Democrats seems like a respectable percentage but she's still down by a decent margin.

Simple thoughts said...

now that palin in unleashed. she can really get down to business

her to step down hurt her a bit, but did not kill her.

she can now get her message out on HER terms. not mccain aids.

 
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