Monday, December 14, 2009

Flush, Flush, Flush

Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19.

Today is the second straight day that Obama’s Approval Index rating has fallen to a new low. Prior to the past two days, the Approval Index had never fallen below -15 during Obama’s time in office (see trends).

The 23% who Strongly Approve matches the lowest level of enthusiasm yet recorded.



Wow! But it gets worse:
Just 41% of Democrats Strongly Approve while 69% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 21% Strongly Approve and 49% Strongly Disapprove.
He's not even pulling strong support from half of his own party, and the critical Indie voters are well over 2-to-1 against. The killer issue, of course, is not exactly a surprise:

Among those who consider the economy to be the most important issue, just 26% Strongly Approve of the President’s performance while 39% Strongly Disapprove.

Among those who consider fiscal policy issues the most important, just 1% Strongly Approve and 81% Strongly Disapprove.

Here's something I find very interesting:
The President’s Approval Index rating is -2 among voters under 30 and -29 among senior citizens. From an income perspective, the President’s ratings are weakest among those who earn $40,000 to $100,000 annually.
I suspect this is probably the most devastating news of all to the White House. The young demographic was the most gung-ho for Obama during the campaign, and is typically the one most likely to get suckered by empty rhetoric like hope-n-change. Seniors, of course, are typically a Democrat stronghold, and to see a -29 approval is tremendously bad. Add in the middle class ($40k-100k), and you have a massive amount of people who are distinctly unhappy with the Obamessiah. That spells electoral disaster.

Can we say one term, anyone?

The biggest danger here for Obama is that if too many Dems in Congress feel like supporting him is politically toxic...they'll stop supporting him. He's already forced a bunch of them to walk the electoral plank with his stimulus, cap-n-tax, and DemCare, so the real question is how many more times will they follow him off the cliff before they feel like they have a better chance of survival opposing him than supporting him.

When that happens, Obama's done. With poll results like this, it may happen sooner than anyone had imagined just a year ago.

There's my two cents.

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