Poll: Obama's Disapproval Ratings Rising In All Key Areas

By Susan Duclos

If there is one thing a sitting President never wants to see it is his approval ratings down while he is trying to get reelected and his disapproval ratings rising as fast as gas prices are. In a new Washington Post-ABC News Poll, majorities either "somewhat" or "strongly" disapprove of Obama's job performance on gas prices (65%), the federal budget deficit (62%), the economy (59%), and the possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons (52%).

Pluralities disapprove of Obama's performance on Energy and Afghanistan as well.

Obama's overall approval is at 46% with just 28 percent "strongly" approving and 18% "somewhat" approving and his disapproval numbers for his overall job performance show 50 disapproving with 39% "strongly" disapproving and 11% "somewhat" disapproving.

While the Washington Post article written about their poll states "Gas prices are a main culprit," four out the six key issues asked about in the poll had clear majorities disapproving of Obama's job performance and two pluralities disapproving. Not a single issue is Obama's approval higher than his disapproval which is indicative of more than just one single issue dragging him down. So stating that gas prices is the "main" culprit instead of just one aspect of the big picture is slightly misleading.

Gas prices do show the highest level of disapproval though, so Obama's recently reported lobbying of Senate Democrats so they would kill a bill that including approval for Keystone, which the majority of Republicans (84%) and Independents (66%), including a plurality of Democrats (49%), are in favor of, does not bode well for Obama who is once again taking a stance that is polar opposite of what Americans want. (Source- Pew Research, via The Hill)

Despite Obama's lobbying efforts to Democrats to reject the bill, 11 Democratic Senators joined with all Republican Senators but failing to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster from Democrats. The vote was 56 to 42 according to the Senate roll call.

[Update] NRO shows the breakdown of respondent's ideology:

The sample for this poll splits 31 percent Democrat, 27 percent Republican, 36 percent Independent.

So, even asking more Democrats than Republicans, Obama's disapproval rating is so high in key areas and 50% overall.

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List Of States Where Unemployment Is Still At Or Above 8%

By Susan Duclos

According to priority polling, via Polling Report.com, those that include unemployment and jobs in their survey question, the majority of Americans list economy and jobs as their number one priority, which is indicative of unemployment numbers and/or the economy playing a very large part of the decision making process in 2012 when voters will decide whether to reelect Barack Obama or replace him with another president.

The United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics has a page which lists the local area unemployment statistics and the areas still at or above 8 percent as of November, are listed below.

Alabama- 8.7%
Arizona- 8.7%
Arkansas- 8.0%
California- 11.3%
Colorado- 8.0%
Connecticut- 8.4%
D.C.- 10.6%
Florida- 10.0%
Georgia- 9.9%
Idaho- 8.5%
Illinois- 10.0%
Indiana- 9.0%
Kentucky- 9.4%
Michigan- 9.8%
Mississippi- 10.5%
Missouri- 8.2%
Nevada- 13.0%
New Jersey- 9.1%
New York- 8.0%
North Carolina- 10.0%
Ohio- 8.5%
Oregon- 9.1%
Rhode Island- 10.5%
South Carolina- 9.9%
Tennessee- 9.1%
Texas- 8.1%
Washington- 8.7%

Excluding DC, that is over half the states in America who are still at or above 8% unemployment.

Early December it was reported the national "official" unemployment dropped to 8.6%, which did not include the 2.6 million persons marginally attached to the work force, ready, able, needing and willing to work but had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Including those people, the U6 Unemployment according to the Department of Labor is 15.6%.

The reasoning behind the drop in the official unemployment numbers was cause for concern by many experts and was explained by Bloomberg at the time:

The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, was forecast to hold at 9 percent. The decrease in the jobless rate reflected a 278,000 gain in employment at the same time 315,000 Americans left the labor force.

“You’d like to see the unemployment rate coming down when people are coming into the job market, not disappearing,” James Glassman, senior economist at JP Morgan Chase & Co. in New York, said in a radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene.

Using December 2011 polling numbers from Reuters/Ipsos, Associated Press/GfK, Rasmussen Reports and CBS News, the national average shows that 69.8% of the public believes the country in heading in the wrong direction with only 25% thinking the U.S. is heading in the right direction.

Other polling numbers show that 60% of voters disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy and 54% of voters do not believe he has performed his job as president well enough to be reelected. (Source- CBS News)

In November 2012, jobs, the economy and Obama jobs performance in specific areas, will be uppermost in the minds of voters when they cast their vote on whether to reelect Barack Obama or change the direction this country is heading and replace him.

Barack Obama recently said "We’re Better Off Today Than When I Took Over."

Are we?

Are you?

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Another Poll Where Majority Want Obama Booted Out Of White House In 2012

By Susan Duclos

Last week it was reported that in a CBS News poll, 54 percent of voters did not think Barack Obama deserved to be reelected in 2012 based on his job performance to date.

Today we see that confirmed with another poll, by a a new AP/GfK poll which finds that 52 percent of Americans "said that President Obama should be voted out of office," which for AP/GfK is a new high.

They also find that 54 percent of voters disapprove of the job Obama is doing as President with 44 percent approving.

What should be more troubling to the Obama reelection team isn't in the numbers themselves but in the pattern of his decline.

Those numbers are a sharp decline from May, when 53 percent said Obama should be reelected....

According to the AP article reporting on the poll, Obama's silver lining is followed by another black cloud.

Silver Lining- Obama's overall standing in the poll suggests he could be in jeopardy of losing re-election even as the survey showed that public's outlook on the economy appears to be improving. For the first time since spring, more people said the economy got better in the past month than said it got worse. The president's approval rating on unemployment shifted upward — from 40 percent in October to 45 percent in the latest poll — as the jobless rate fell to 8.6 percent last month, its lowest level since March 2009.

Black Cloud- But Obama's approval rating on his handling of the economy overall remains stagnant: Thirty-nine percent approve and 60 percent disapprove.

Other bad news for Obama is that his "signature" accomplishment, Obamacare, which was passed by the Democratically controlled House and Senate with Obama signing into law despite the opposition of the majority of Americans wishes, has reached the lowest level of support since it's passage, with only 29 percent supporting it and 49 percent opposing it.

Especially troubling for Democrats heading into an election year, is that the passion is also on the side of the opponents of the law. Just 13 percent consider themselves strong supporters, compared to 33 percent who say they "strongly oppose" the law.

As to the issue the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear, the individual mandate, the news gets worse for Obama and Democrats:

Even worse for Obama, just 15 percent of people said they think government should have the power to require individuals to purchase health insurance, compared to 84 percent who say they should not.

As I have stated before, I do not lend much credence to "head to head" match ups with Obama against individual GOP candidates because until one specific Republican is nominated to run against Obama in 2012, the party supporters have no one candidate to coalesce behind and actively promote.

I see no predictive value in the numbers until GOP supporters can unite behind the nominee as Democrats and liberals are already united behind Obama.

Since no specific candidate has been chosen yet, the number I am looking at is the Generic Presidential Ballot which Rasmussen shows a generic Republican is ahead of Obama by 5 percentage points, in December. Gallup has the GOP generic candidate up by 8 percentage points against Obama.

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CBS News Poll: Majority (54 Percent) Don't Think Obama Should Be Reelected

By Susan Duclos



CBS News Polling provides bad news for Barack Obama's chances at being reelected as President in 2012.

The majority of voters, 54 percent, does not think Obama has performed the job he was elected to do, well enough to be elected into a second term with just 41 percent thinking he has.



Furthermore, 54 percent also do not believe Obama shares their priorities with only 41 percent believing he does.

Other findings show that while Obama receives high marks for "handling terrorism" with 57 percent approving, he does not get high marks for "job creation" or the "economy" with 58 percent disapproving of how Obama has handled job creation and 60 percent disapproving of his handling of the economy.

Views on the national economy remain very negative: since early 2008, roughly three in four Americans (and sometimes even more) have said the economy is in bad shape. Now, 86% of Americans characterize the economy as at least somewhat bad, including 42% who say it is very bad. Although the national unemployment rate recently dropped below 9% for the first time since 2009, Americans are skeptical that a recovery is on the horizon. Just 21% think the economy is getting better, and 39% think it is getting worse, up from 32% last month.

More:

• 68 percent believe Obama has not made any real progress on fixing the economy with only 28 percent believing he has made progress.

• 57 percent think Obama has worked hard to bring about change but a plurality, 48 percent, believe Obama has divided the country in doing so with only 37 percent saying he brought the country together.

• 51 percent of voters continue to disapprove of Obama's "signature accomplishment", Obamacare, with only 35 percent approving. 13 percent think Obamacare will help them personally while 32 percent saying it will hurt them and 46 percent stating it will have no effect.

• 75 percent think the country is on the wrong track and 21 percent say it is going in the right direction.

• 46 percent disapprove of Obama's overall job performance with 44 percent approving.

Worth noting that the CBS News poll's disapproval figures Obama do not match the national average. Gallup shows 51 percent disapproving, CNN/Opinion Research shows 54 percent disapproving, Fox News shows 51 percent disapproving and Rasmussen, the only one that uses likely voters as their sample, has 55 percent disapproving.

Once again we see that voters like Obama personally but do not see his likability translated into capability.

CBS News analysis of polling results found here.

Full CBS News poll results (PDF)

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