Americans are now pretty evenly divided about whether they would rather have Barack Obama or George W. Bush in the White House. 48% prefer Obama while 46% say they would rather have the old President back.
Bush had atrocious approval ratings for his final few years in office, particularly because he lost a lot of support from Republicans and conservative leaning independents. Those folks may not have liked him but they now say they would rather have him back than Obama. 87% of GOP voters now say they would prefer Bush, a number a good deal higher than Bush's approval rating within his party toward the tail end of his Presidency. Democrats predictably go for Obama by an 86/10 margin, and independents lean toward him as well by a 49/37 spread.
These numbers suggest some peril for Democrats in making Bush a focus of their messaging this fall. A lot of folks who contributed to the former President's low level of popularity now like Obama even less. Figuring out a way to make voters change their minds about the current President would be a much more effective strategy for Democrats than continuing to try to score points off the former one.
Full results here
Just for LOLZ, you might want to include Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton in future "miss me or not" polls.
ReplyDeleteI'd be willing to bet even Jimmeh gives Teh One a run for his money.
Wait what?
ReplyDeleteDemocrats go for Obama by as much as Reps go for Bush, Indies go for Obama by 12 and yet it's overall a 2-point race? Did you include more Republicans than Democrats in your sample?
I'd prefer Bush right now. He was a big spender, but even he had his limits. With Bush, there would be no Porkulus, no Obamacare, and no threat of crap-and-betrayed. Unfortunately he did support amnesty which is in no small part why conservatives got fed up with him in his last couple years in office.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers do not add up. How can this be so close. If the Dems prefer Obama and the Independents favor the One. The Dems and GOP should cancel each other out in the polling (keeping the numbers about even but favoring the One since we always here there is more Dems then there is Republicians) Then it would come down to the delta between the independents which in thise article favors the One by a large margin, much more the 2%.
ReplyDeleteIf this is correct then alot more folks now claim to be a Repubiclian then a Demcrocrat.
The voter composition on this poll is completely screwed and brings into question the veracity or usefulness of this poll (likely due to your slanted LV screen).
ReplyDeleteHere are examples:
1) split was 48/45 obama/mccain (divergence of over 5% from actuality).
2) split was 50/50 women/men (divergence of over 6% from actuality)
3) split was 38/38 dem/pub (divergence of over 5% from actuality)
4) 75% white (divergence of over 10% from actuality)
That's just for starters. Come on PPP, you can do better. Speak to Nate Silver if you need help.
Rasmussen found Ron Paul just one point behind Obama, and Ron Paul took independents by 20.
ReplyDeleteCould we get him in the 2012 poll every month now?
This is pretty funny...
ReplyDeleteThe guy NOT in office has his approval rating going up and the guy IN office has his approval ratings going down...
cnredd
Political Wrinkles
http://politicalwrinkles.com
Ron Paul will be 77 years old in 2012. Can we please move on already??
ReplyDeleteGive me back Mr. Bush. obama is going to ruin this country. Bush is an honorable man.... obama is only out for obama
ReplyDeleteA lot of people seem to be complaining that this poll couldn't possibly be true, and give all kinds of statistical reasons.
ReplyDeleteSo change the results by five percent. Or ten. So what? The fact that Bush is even in the ballpark should be reason enough for Obama's fans to be worried.
Guy who threw a party is almost as popular as the guy who's leading the clean up crew.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you find it newsworthy that Republicans would rather have Bush than Obama is laughable. You needed a poll to tell you this? Really? Breaking news: water wet, sky blue, grass green. More at 11...
ReplyDeleteIt's only going to get worse for the dopes who fell for this fraud a year ago.
ReplyDeleteViva la Bush!
ReplyDeleteSeriously don't you have something more constructive to do? So the 46% of the people who voted for McCain still don't like Obama. Yeah next time why not do reagan vs nixon and see whick dead guy wins!
ReplyDeleteWhile I think Tom is getting beaten up unnecessarily it shouldn't be a surprise that no matter how far to the left Republicans felt Bush was that Obama is further left. The question that should be asked is how independents broke down a year ago vs. today.
ReplyDeleteHarry Truman was as unpopular as Bush, but today that's changed. LBJ, Carter, and Nixon were far more unpopular when they left office than they are today. Some people were better off under Bush and would prefer his policies, where they wouldn't a year and a half ago.
I think because George W Bush has been out of the spotlight and the economy hasn't improved under Obama, people are beginning to forgive Bush. This doesn't mean they'll vote for another Bush any time soon.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how Dick Cheney fares against Obama just for fun?
Wow, Americans really have short memories!!! It was Bush and his cronies who lied us into the Iraq War with thousands of lives lost, billions of dollars wasted and unaccounted for, the Katrina debacle, deregulation of banks and the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. How quickly we forget that Bush and the Republican Party were responsible for just about dismantling America.
ReplyDeleteI guess Republican would rather return to a government that deregulates anything, so anyone can take out loans again and have the economy collapse; I guess they want Bush in office again so he can declare war on who know what country. I don't approve of much of what Obama has done, and I'm quite disappointed in him, but I still prefer him over Bush. Lets not forget the mess we are in was caused by Bush. It's easier to get into a hole than to get out of.
ReplyDeleteThe poll is as far as I understand RV and looking at pollster.com's RV aggregate they got D+2 in party identification, so PPP is not that far off if they split down the middle between dems and republicans.
ReplyDeleteHowever for "All Americans", pollster.com got D+8 and much more indies so had PPP polled All Americans instead of RVs this would have looked much different.
Given that Tom writes this up as the opinions of "Americans" it's in fact a wee bit dishonest. It's not the opinion of Americans - it's the opinion of ppl registered to vote in the midterms.
I think his analysis is also slightly off. He says that focusing on Bush may not pay off for dems. But I'd say you could read this as republicans and right leaning indies are at the moment registered to vote since they are more enthusiastic but there's a lot of dems and indies that don't like Bush at all and they might register and vote if reminded of Bush and if they believed a republican takeover would lead to Bush policies....
In 2008, Obama ran against Bush, even though Bush did not/could not run. Inexplicably, it worked.
ReplyDeleteIn 2012, will Obama repeat this straegy and run against Bush?
Bush passed more regulations than any President. He didn't deregulate anything. All the deregulation happened under Bill Clinton. The financial deregulation was 1999-2000. But blame Bush. It's a better narrative. Who cares if it's true?
ReplyDeleteBuyers remorse is a beach isn't it. 15 million our of work and Obama's reaction is surprise when he doesn't get a thank you for pretending to lower taxes.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the poll reveals, I would not choose any of of them. I'd rather go and vote for someone new. I'll vote for a presidential candidate who will listen to the people, will care for the people and will do what the people wants and not what he wants to do.
ReplyDelete