Barack Obama's approval numbers have been hitting new lows in some surveys of late. Here are some observations on where he stands today as compared to a year ago in our polling:
-He still has not seen any erosion in his support from the Democratic base. He was at 82% approval with his party a year ago and he's at 83% now.
-He's lost a good portion of the low amount of favor he had with Republicans to begin with. Where he stood at 18% approval with them a year ago he's now at only 11%.
-Obama's biggest decline has been with independents, from 46% approval to 38% approval. In a number of key states for this fall that approval number with them is even worse. In Texas Obama stands at 33/62 with independents and in Pennsylvania it's 32/61. We showed tied races in both of those states this week but Obama's lack of popularity could prove a hindrance in Bill White and Joe Sestak's ultimate abilities to win those races.
-Obama's approval numbers with African Americans (93%) and Hispanics (59-60%) are almost identical to what they were a year ago. But he's fallen from 44% to 40% for whites, and that's responsible for most of his overall decline in popularity.
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4 comments:
Tom,
You are right on the money. Often people ask me, why still obama is in 40's favorability? It is all about African American support which is at 93%. When that goes to 75 to 80%, Obama's numbers have to go down into his 30's. If the unemployment rate remains at this level, the favorability rate among African Americans will fall or atleast they will not turn out for the mid term elections. If we believe in numbers and statistics, Probability theory cannot be wrong for this group alone.
What is Obama`s overall approval rating in your TX poll ?
Obama's popularity doesn't translate into votes as much as previous presidents. For that reason people will have to make predictions based on data that doesn't map precisely onto the present cricumstances.
Obama is most popular with groups that vote in lower proportions than the groups he's least popular with. So an old political model with an approval rating variable that once correlatied with a certain amount of political capital, a number of house seats lost, or other dependent political variable will need to be amended.
"What is Obama`s overall approval rating in your TX poll ?"
It's in the Hutchison release from today. 40 approve, 54 disapprove.
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