The first day back from summer break in Washington brought fresh evidence that the race for 2012 will be a competitive one, and the President is on shaky ground. Three new polls from NBC/Wall Street Journal, ABC/Washington Post and Politico/George Washington University all had one major message: President Obama’s approval ratings are at their lowest levels, but people still like him. And the jury is still out on who can actually beat him.
NBC trumpeted the headline “President ‘is no longer the favorite to win re-election,’ Democratic pollster says,” and then cited numbers that are similar to many seen in August. Obama’s general approval rating in the NBC/WSJ poll is underwater at 44 percent against 51 percent disapproval. On the economy it’s more bleak, at 37 approval versus 59 percent disapproval. ABC/WaPo showed similar numbers as did Politico/GWU.
We have also seen similar numbers over the last month, in the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls, in CNN surveys and in Quinnipiac. The question at this point is not if the President will see tough challenge, but given the economic numbers, how is it that he is still ahead of his potential GOP rivals?
The polls all provide an answer: Voters still like President Obama as a person, and indeed support many of his individual policies, and are therefore conflicted about firing him. His favorability ratings across many polls are higher than his approval ratings. Some have made the comparison between Obama and former President Ronald Reagan, who maintained high favorability even though he himself faced challenges on job approval. Reagan had a major dip in approval during his first term, only to win in a landslide in 1984 after the economy sped up.
But some of the real underlying trouble is in the President’s numbers on other qualities than likeability. NBC/WSJ also rated a number of other attributes on a 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest. On “having strong leadership qualities” the President rated a 5 or 4 from 42 percent of respondents, way down from the previous highs of his first two years in office. His rating on “being a good commander-in-chief” also suffered dropping to a 4 or 5 rating from only 41 percent, and on his “ability to handle a crisis” was down 14 points.
Yet, voters are not ready to blame the President directly for what happened with the debt deal, which has brought about historic ire from Americans toward Washington. In the same NBC/WSJ poll, respondents identified a clear villan in the debt ceiling debacle: Congressional Republicans. 30 percent thought they were to blame versus 13 who pointed to Obama. Even Congressional Democrats actually got more blame than the President, at 15 percent, which was the same percentage who blamed everyone involved. So despite a drop in a perception of the President’s leadership qualities, data from the same poll shows that people aren’t ready to believe those qualities have been the issue in Washington’s problems.
Speaking of Washington’s problems, the polling provided some intriguing data about what priorities are popular with the American people as Obama proposes a jobs bill to Congress, and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney makes a speech about his ideas. They show that not one of the rumored proposals from the President actually rate as a “bad idea” by the respondents: 62 percent thought providing training for unemployed workers was a good idea, 47 thought the same about a new road construction bill, and 44 percent agree with extending unemployment benefits and 40 are for extending the payroll income tax cut. The highest “bad idea” score on any of these proposals was 39 percent for extending employment benefits.
Secondly, the NBC poll shows real resistence toward austerity measures that are simply cuts. 60 percent of respondents thought Congress should “Reduce the deficit by ending the Bush tax cuts for families earning two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more per year,” the highest score for any policy on reducing the debt. On the other side, reducing the debt by “only cutting spending and not raising any taxes including not raising taxes on corporations or the wealth” only notches 39 percent approval.
While the policy message in these polls may be muddled, general economic frustration pierces through everything. The ABC/WaPo poll showed that voters just don’t believe that their personal situation has improved under President Obama: only 8 percent believed that in 2009, and 15 percent in the latest. You have to go back to 1994 before finding a lower number on that metric in the ABC/WaPo poll, when it was 12 percent. The rest of respondents in that category think their economic situation is either worse or the same, which is clearly not helpful to an incumbent President.
But when it comes to the 2012 matchup, all this economic bad news and falling poll numbers have not knocked Obama out. In fact, the Politico/GWU poll showed the opposite.
Not only does Obama beat both Romney and Tex. Gov. Rick Perry in hypothetical matchups, the Republican field isn’t particularly attractive as a group of candidates. The poll tested which GOP contenders voters would consider voting for in the 2012 general. Only Romney, who 9 percent said they were definitely ready to vote for and who 41 percent said they would consider, reached a combined 50 percent. Only slightly more people were ready for vote for Perry (11 percent) but less were considering him (33 percent), for a total of 44 percent. And Michele Bachmann has basically invalidated herself as a candidate with 58 percent of general election voters who wouldn’t consider her at all.
The Politico/GWU poll also has the most powerful Obama favorability number, with a full 74 percent approving of him “as a person.” The rating is not a silver bullet, but it seems that the President has a buffer against the horrible nature of the economic times and a fractious Washington: himself.
David Teich contributed to this report.
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