Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Obama keeps hitting record lows

In our national polling for Daily Kos Barack Obama has hit a record low approval rating 3 weeks in a row now. He's gone from 43/53 to 42/53 to now 42/54 in our poll this week.

What might be most noteworthy is this week's poll is how bad Obama's numbers are with a few key and usually dependable Democratic constituencies. He's under water in union households at 44/47. He's also under water with voters under 30 at 45/48. The Northeast tends to a pretty dependable region for Democrats but Obama's under water there at 47/49. Obama's usually been able to hold his ground with female voters but he's under water with them too at 45/49. And even with African Americans his approval rating's down to 76%, about as low as we've ever found it.

I wrote a blog post last week about how Democratic enthusiasm was at a year long low. Now it's at a lower year long low with only 47% of the party's voters 'very excited' about voting this year compared to 58% of Republicans.

There is perhaps one piece of good news for Obama these days and that's the surge of Rick Perry, who our polling suggests is not as strong a general election candidate as Mitt Romney. Perry fared 6 points worse than Romney against Obama in our national poll last week and does 7 points worse on South Carolina numbers we're releasing tomorrow. Obama trails a generic opponent 48-44 on our national poll this week, including 51-37 with independents. He has to hope Perry proves to be something worse than generic. And although Perry's off to a good start with Republicans, Democrats and independents don't think much of him. So that's possible.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm an independent, registered Republican, and I've been screaming from the rooftops: If the GOP nominates Perry or someone of his ilk, I won't vote for them. Period. The lunatics need to GTFO.

The Interesting Times said...

People who scream from rooftops aren't lunatics? :)

Anonymous said...

how are you both an independent and a registered republican?

AG said...

So its starting to look like Obama's weak numbers are due to disaffected liberals, rather than turned-off independents. If that's the case then whose to blame here: liberals for failing to acknowledge their President's accomplishments, or Obama for failing to appeal more to them?

Whoever's fault it is, they better come together soon. We've already seen what happened once before when the Democrats essentially didn't campaign.

Ranjit said...

In the general election, with an unemployment rate of 9% and above, you cannot ask people to vote saying that, other person is bad ! Rick perry is a weaker candidate? In the debate, perry will just look at the president and taunt the number of jobs created in texas and what will be the response of the president?

Rick perry or Mitt Romney will easily win the general election ! Look at the enthusiasm among democrats ! That one factor is enough to push any decent republican candidate for a landslide !

NRH said...

If Rick Perry says anything about the number of jobs created in Texas, it will be the easiest thing in the world to say "Congratulations on creating federally-funded government jobs to make up for losing a hundred thousand private-sector jobs, moron." The net job creation in Texas is because they add government jobs - the same ones that Perry and his loathsome ilk constantly decry as 'not real jobs.'

I Am Iron Man said...

The endless stream of lies about our President have eaten away at the average voter's confidence in Obama but I think as the truth comes out about his 2012 opponent (seems likely to be Perry at the moment) people will be able to make the right choice: 4 more years to repair the damage left by Bush/Cheney (and don't tell me to stop "blaming Bush" - he doesn't get nearly enough blame for what he did to our country.)

Anonymous said...

"perry will just look at the president and taunt the number of jobs created in texas and what will be the response of the president?"

That more private-sector jobs were created in the first year and a half of Obama than in all 8 years of Bush. Hard for people to believe, but it's true.

Bill said...

It's not that difficult. Here's why I'm voting 3rd party next election. (off the top of my head, no order)
1) Continuing and expanding wars
2) Failure to prosecute government and banking criminals
3) Continuing policies of domestic spying and torture
4) War on whistle blowers
5) Extending Bush tax cuts for the rich
6) Caving on the public option without a fight
7) Too willing to compromise on important principles which are worth fighting for
8) Focusing on debt when jobs need the attention

There are more but this is already more than enough to withdraw my support. Yeah, he has faced opposition but he hasn't put up much of a fight.

Anonymous said...

Remember the fact stated thus: 'As a Black man I had to work twice as hard as everybody else just to prove I wasn't some affirmative action hire'? Be it college or workplace the recognition of this fact (or assertion if you will) held a lot of credibility because the Black man WAS working hard. Obama has nullified that particular notion. He is a lazy disgrace, and shall be defeated in a landslide.

wt said...

Obama can win but it won't be on the wings of hope and change. It'll be a scorched earth campaign about how he compares to the GOP nominee.

 
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