Our national poll last week- which is conducted with registered, rather than likely, voters- found that 88% of people who voted for Obama still approve of the job he's doing.
It's a different story with likely voters in the 16 states we've polled since switching over to LVs for our horse race polling in mid-August. Only in 3 of those states- Alaska, North Carolina, and Texas- has Obama maintained that level of popularity with people who voted for him. And in several key states where Democrats are having a lot of trouble it's dropped quite a bit.
The place where Obama's lost the largest degree of his support is West Virginia, where only 76% of his voters are still happy with him. That's why Joe Manchin appears to be in a tight race despite his high level of popularity. In Pennsylvania just 78% of his voters think he's doing a good job and there's a pretty strong sense that Democrats will lose both the Senate seat and Governorship they hold there, and quite possibly by wide margins. That 78% mark holds true in Wisconsin as well, where we need to see more polling but things are beginning to look pretty dire for the Democrats.
What these numbers suggest to me is that Democrats staying home aren't necessarily disappointed with how things have gone so far. The Democrats not voting are more pleased with how Obama's done than the Democrats who are voting. And when you're happy you simply don't have the sense of urgency about going out and voting to make something change. That complacency, more than the Republicans, is Democrats' strongest foe this year.
Here are the state by state numbers on the level of support Obama has maintained with folks who voted for him:
| State | Obama Approval with his 2008 voters |
| Alaska | 92% |
| North Carolina | 89% |
| Texas | 88% |
| Louisiana | 87% |
| Illinois | 87% |
| California | 86% |
| New Hampshire | 85% |
| Kentucky | 83% |
| Missouri | 82% |
| Ohio | 82% |
| Maine | 80% |
| Delaware | 79% |
| Florida | 78% |
| Pennsylvania | 78% |
| Wisconsin | 78% |
| West Virginia | 76% |
"Beyond that, I realized today, that Obama voters who are planning to show up generally have more negative feelings toward him than Obama voters at large. And obviously the folks who voted for Obama but have soured on him are more likely to fall into the GOP column."
ReplyDeleteNow wait a minute--this does not follow at all. There are plenty of Democrats which are mad at Obama for not being liberal enough. They certainly are not "more likely to fall into the GOP column."
Does the people who voted for Obama include Independent voters or are they talking about Democrats only?
ReplyDeleteanonymous, it's possible they could be. i assume these would be the centrists who flip right or left whichever way the wind is blowing.
ReplyDeleteHere's the Obama voter who is more likely to show up. Those who see that the results of Democrats' policies has been misery.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.breitbart.tv/obama-supporter-im-exhausted-of-defending-you/
Where does New York fit compared to the other states? I'd be very interested to see you poll NY.
ReplyDelete"Does the people who voted for Obama include Independent voters or are they talking about Democrats only?"
ReplyDeleteIt's anyone who said they voted for Obama in 2008 when we asked them. It's a question we ask on every public poll we do as a demographic marker and to help demonstrate the size of the enthusiasm gap.
"Where does New York fit compared to the other states? I'd be very interested to see you poll NY."
We haven't polled NY yet this cycle (except the 19th CD for DailyKos last week) because both Senate races and the gov. race were looking to be blowouts until this week. I'm a native NYer, so I wouldn't mind polling there, but it probably won't be on the top of our list until it looks like Cuomo and Gillibrand are really in trouble.
So Obama voters are still essentially happy with what the President has done in office in the past two years. But because they are happy they are less likely to get out and vote? Is this the new reason being rolled out and meme tested? Because Obama voters are happy the Democrats will loose seats in Congress? I am sorry but this is h0^^$&$!t. Where is the polling on the decrease in people identifying as Democrats? Where is the analysis of why huge increases are occurring the numbers voting in Republican primaries as opposed to Democratic ones. Spinning that Dems are so happy that they are going to sit on their asses and not vote is ridiculous. They are not going to vote because they have been screwed and have nada to vote for. And then there are the old coalition voters who were told they were no longer needed. This is a revenge election to them. And remember that it is still politically incorrect to oppose this president if you are a Democrat. This is skewing polling.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your conclusion follows from the data. For one, the way in which the poll differentiates between "likely" versus "registered" voters may cause some of the discrepency.
ReplyDeleteObama's numbers are most likely still high among young people, minorities, and others who voted in 2008 but haven't voted otherwise. I wouldn't say they are complacent with the state of things, but more that their electoral interest was more focused on Obama than on Democrats in general.
Alternatively, a better explanation is that voters who approve of Obama may disapprove of Democrats in Congress and the mess that Democratic control has been. You can make some jokes about Obama, but the real butt of the jokes (and low popularity ratings) come to the complete inability of huge Democratic majorities to run Congress effectively.
Either way, I don't think voters are "complacent."
Shouldn't you be comparing state LV approval among Obama '08 voters to *state* registered Dem approval among Obama '08 voters now? I doubt the latter is 88, 88, 88... for every state you list. You list high values in CA and TX; if they're high in other big states like NY, you get a high national %.
ReplyDelete"Shouldn't you be comparing state LV approval among Obama '08 voters to *state* registered Dem approval among Obama '08 voters now?"
ReplyDelete2 things:
1.) We don't report what people are actually registered as; we report what they say they are.
2.) We can't compare LV to RV within a single poll because our screen bumps out people who aren't likely to vote right from the start. It's not a matter of us guessing who's going to vote or not.