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PrintJune 23, 2009
Obama's poll numbers begin to tumble
Some of the drop is surely the result of the sheen wearing off his inaugural and people settling back into their accustomed niches - Democrat, Republican, and independent.
And even though his personal popularity remains in the 60% range in a spate of polls that have come out this past week, it is equally clear that the president's policies are beginning to drag him down and that people are becoming very worried about his fiscal program and his deficit spending.
This article by Michael Falcone and Andy Barr in Politico is a great summary of several polls from different sources that have come out in the last week or so, clearly showing Obama losing popularity while his negatives are on the rise:
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, said the Obama administration should look at the new results "as a warning sign" but added that the new numbers were "not an indication of a loss of fundamental political support."
"The real driver is not the president's personal popularity," which remains robust, Kohut said, "but faith in him to deal with the nation's No. 1 problem": i.e. the economy.
This highlights how some of Obama's political fortunes remain outside his control, dependent on employment figures which have continued to worsen even as the federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on measures to stimulate the economy and bail out the financial services sector.
Surveys released last week by Pew, NBC News/Wall Street Journal and The New York Times/CBS News show a similar pattern. The Pew survey, for example, registered an 8-percentage-point drop in public approval for Obama's handling of the economy - falling from 60 percent to 52 percent between mid-April and June. The percentage of Americans who disapprove jumped by 7 percentage points during the same period.
Though Democrats are still generally more supportive of the administration overall, the slide in the president's economic numbers defied partisan boundaries. The Pew survey, for instance, showed support for Obama's handling of the economy sliding 6 percentage points among Democrats and independents.
Specifically, by a wide margin, people want the president to reduce the deficit rather than "stimulate" the economy. And his auto bailout is very unpopular with a bare plurality supporting it at the moment.
On the plus side for the president, people are still confident that he can turn things around. And lest Republicans think all they have to do is run a warm body against a Democrat in 2010 to win, one poll shows Democrats with a 55% approval rating while Republicans are at 25% - hardly a clarion call for upending the political order.
I would wager that Obama's handling of the Iran crisis is winning him little support either. All in all, the end of the summer may see even the president's personal popularity plummeting as the economy continues it's sluggish and uncertain road to recovery.
