Thursday, January 19, 2012

NYT Poll Finds Obama’s Favorability Rating Down To 38% – Only 31% Among Independents…



According to the latest Rasmussen poll...oh wait, this is a NYT/CBS Poll!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Independent voters, who helped propel President Barack Obama to victory in the 2008 election, could be an obstacle in his bid for a second term in the White House, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published on Wednesday.

A majority of independent voters have soured on Obama’s presidency, disapprove of his handling of the economy and do not have a clear idea of what he hopes to accomplish if re-elected, the Times reported.

Only 31 percent of independent voters have a favorable opinion of the president and two-thirds say he has not made real progress in fixing the economy, the newspaper said.

In 2008, Obama won support from 52 percent of independent voters, compared with 44 percent who supported Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

Among all voters, 38 percent view Obama favorably, 45 percent unfavorably and 17 percent have no opinion, the survey showed. Voters were evenly divided in a matchup between Obama and Romney, but Obama fared better against other Republican candidates, the Times said
Note that this is a favorability rating, not a job approval rating, but it's important. One thing the president's apologists have always banked on is his 'likeability', the belief that this president is basically a nice guy even though he's treating the electorate like a bunch of simple minded serfs who exist only to do his and Mooch-elle's bidding, Apparently that's no longer true, and if Pravda-on-the-Hudson is allowing these numbers to see the light of day even on page A-16, the real ones must be devastating.

It's also worth noting that out of the four most recent polls, only the NYT/CBS poll shows President Obama's job approval ratings barely in plus territory - and that's well within the margin of error.

Job approval ratings are flexible and can come back, but favorability ratings relate to people's gut feelings about a candidate. Once they tank, it's hard if not impossible to bring them back.

1 comment:

louielouie said...

while not disputing the poll numbers, i tend to look at things from the glass being half full, to being half empty.
that last sentence.
that's peculiar ain't it.
after going through the motions of talking about hussein's numbers the way they do, they tell us that he an romney are in a dead heat.
so why change horses mid-stream?
and they go on to tell the repubs that the other candidates didn't even do as good as romney. so you better nominate romney if you want to break even with hussein.
that anyone could break even with hussein at this point is simply pathetic.