It’s hard out there for 2008’s party of change.
A year and half into the Obama administration and with midterm elections just a few months away, several national polls released this week reveal a public impatient with the president’s handling of the economy and unhappy with his performance on nearly every other domestic issue — from the Gulf oil spill to immigration. Polls released by ABC/Washington Post, Fox News and Gallup all showed President Obama’s approval ratings at an all-time low.
Questions about the state of the economy were at the heart of many of these polls, which found respondents to be overwhelmingly dour. In a Bloomberg poll released Thursday, 54% of Americans said that they were still “hunkering down” because of today’s economic conditions, while only 23% reported that they things were “getting back to normal.” In Tuesday’s CBS poll, 51% of respondents said they expected effects of the recession to last an additional two years. And in poll after poll, Obama’s approval ratings for his handling of the economy dwindled in the low 40s.
J. Ann Selzer, the president of Selzer & Co., which conducted this week’s Bloomberg poll, attributes Obama’s poor ratings on the economy to a perception that the situation isn’t improving. “There was a number in our poll that I think nailed the mood of the country, which was that 71% say that they don’t care what economists were saying, that we’re still in a recession,” Selzer said. “Things do not feel as though they are moving, and people are feeling that it’s going to be a long time before they do. There’s a losing of hope.”
Americans’ discontent doesn’t end with the economy. In this week’s CBS and ABC/Washington Post polls, disapproval ratings for Obama’s oil spill response topped approval ratings by double-digit margins. Only 35% of Americans in the Time poll said they approved of Obama’s handling of immigration policy, and a Fox survey (PDF) released today found that nearly 60% of voters oppose the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Only on foreign policy matters does Obama enjoy more support than not, with respondents to Time‘s poll approving of Obama’s handling of foreign affairs 52% to 41%.
The president’s overall approval ratings have also taken a hit. Obama’s 50% approval rating in the ABC/Washington Post poll was as low as that poll has ever shown. The same is true of his 43% approval rating in the Fox News poll and his 44% approval rating in several of this week’s Gallup daily tracking polls.
For Democrats in Congress, Obama’s unpopularity with the public is bad news. “In terms of Democrats in the midterm elections, do I find any silver linings in the approval ratings? No,” Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor in chief, said.
Today’s Fox News poll showed that, although Democrats in Congress can boast of higher approval ratings than their Republican colleagues, voters thinking about the upcoming midterm elections prefer a generic Republican to a generic Democrat 41% to 37%. Obama’s unpopularity may explain this discrepancy. The poll found that 41% of voters said their vote for Congress would “express opposition to Obama’s policies.” By contrast, 33% said their vote would “express support” for those policies.
Republicans may have another advantage going into this year’s midterms. “We find 15 points higher enthusiasm among Republicans than Democrats,” Newport said. “All in all, when you put it together, the numbers look better for Republicans.”
On the other hand, the GOP’s low approval ratings may give midterm-wary Democrats some reason to be hopeful. “There’s no sense that the Republicans have put forward a positive case that people are ready to accept,” Selzer said. “I just don’t think that the polls this week are in any way saying it’s a done deal.”
