Politico Reviews Obama Polling: Independents Souring; Voters Turn Against Obama in Ohio, Virginia

Obviously it's very early to even begin talking about swing states in 2012.

But who cares. We need some good news and this counts.

In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest.

Obama’s job approval rating hit a — still healthy — low of 56 percent in the Gallup Poll on Wednesday. And pollsters are debating whether Obama’s expansive and expensive policy proposals or the ground-level realities of a still-faltering economy are driving the falling numbers.

But a source of the shift appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government control.

“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.

“They’re saying, ‘Costing too much, no results, see the downside, not sure of the upside,’” he said.

...

Pollsters from both parties debate the numbers’ meaning, but averages of public polls have shown a gentle downward trend.

...

Obama dropped 6 percentage points [among Independents] last week from the week before in Gallup’s tracking poll, and Quinnipiac University found a 5-percentage-point drop in approval from independents between early June and early July. Recent state polling shows drops over longer periods.

A Quinnipiac University poll of voters in economically troubled Ohio, released Tuesday, showed Obama’s approval rating slipping 8 points, to below 50 percent, from a poll two months earlier, with a plurality of 48 percent of independent voters disapproving of his job performance. A Public Policy Polling survey in Virginia found Obama’s approval and disapproval numbers effectively tied, with independents disapproving of the president’s job performance, 52 percent to 38 percent.

The liberal media has successfully branded Rasmussen a "Republican polling outfit," or at least they've convinced themselves of that. (They started deligitimizing Rasmussen a few months ago and now don't even mention them, apparently satisfied with their own offers of evidence.)

But the rest of us still take notice. Obama's doing worse in that poll, consistently 4-5% worse than he does in Gallup. And his vaunted popularity is now... a statistical dead heat between those who approve and those who disapprove.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 43% say he is doing a poor job. Those are by far his lowest ratings yet on the economy …

Overall, 51% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance so far. Forty-eight percent (48%) now disapprove.

He's at an all time low of -8 in the oddball Presidential Approval Index, where those who strongly disapprove are subtracted from those who strongly disapprove. His strong support is down to 30% and his strong disapproval is up to 38%.

Democrats Balking: Politico also notes Obama is having a hard time getting Democrats to support a lot of his programs schemes. And that was when he was supposedly Captain Awesome. As he weakens in the polls, he'll get less support still.

posted by Ace at 03:32 PM

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