President Barack Obama, shown here with his key White House advisors Jim Messina (left) and David Axelrod (right), faces an uphill struggle to push through his comprehensive health care plan as the health care summit winds down without a deal with the GOP
Fox News just released new polling done on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week which shows the lowest approval (37%) and highest disapproval (56%) of Obama’s handling of health care than ever before, a 19% net deficit. The only other issue in which President Obama scores worse with the public than his handling of health care is Obama’s handling of the federal budget deficit, where Obama faces a thirty point deficit (31% approve, 61% disapprove) with the American public. Obama’s 19% net American public disapproval on his handling of health care in the new Fox poll is matched by the 20% net deficit in public approval of Obama’s handling of health care (35% approve, 55% disapprove) found by the latest CBS/NYT polling on the subject. Finally, 59% of the public think that Obama and the Democrats should scrap the health care bill and pass nothing if a bipartisan deal is not reached with the GOP while 34% believe Obama should push through his plan without GOP support:
If President Obama is unable to reach a deal with Republicans at the summit, 59 percent think he should start from scratch later. Some 34 percent think he should go ahead and try to pass the current bill without Republican support.
By a 50 to 40 percent margin, more voters think the health care summit is a “sincere effort” on the president’s part to work out a compromise than think it is “just for show.”
Nearly seven out of 10 voters feel “fed up with” the health care debate, including most Republicans (82 percent) and most independents (70 percent), as well as half of Democrats (50 percent).
The national telephone poll was conducted for Fox News by Opinion Dynamics Corp. among 900 registered voters from February 23 to February 24. For the total sample, the poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
More voters than ever now disapprove of the job President Obama is doing on health care — 56 percent. That’s 19 percentage points higher than the 37 percent who approve.
Furthermore, on only one other issue does the president receive lower ratings than on health care — his handling of the federal deficit (31 percent approve and 61 percent disapprove).
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If a compromise isn’t achieved at the summit, by a two-to-one margin Democrats think the president should still try to pass the bill without Republicans. Even so, 31 percent think the president should start over in this scenario.
For independents, it’s just the reverse, by more than two-to-one they support dropping the current bill and starting over. An overwhelming majority of Republicans say the current bill should be dropped if the health care summit fails to find bipartisan agreement.
The new Fox poll also found Obama’s overall job approval at 47%/45%, and interestingly found by a 62%/17% margin that President Obama is better at campaigning than governing, and half of the American voting public believes that the Obama Administration does not “get it” regarding voter anger at DC:
The consensus among American voters is Barack Obama is better at campaigning for the job than at doing the job, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. In addition, half of voters say the Obama administration doesn’t “get it.”
As the president’s approval rating remains in the high forties, the poll finds that voters by a wide 62 to 17 percent margin think Obama is better at campaigning than at governing.
It isn’t surprising most Republicans feel this way (83 percent). What may surprise the White House is that nearly seven out of 10 independents say they feel the president is better at campaigning than governing, and so do more Democrats (albeit by a thin 6 percentage-point edge). More than one out of five Democrats was unable to choose between campaigning and governing and volunteered a “both” response (22 percent).
On Wednesday there were reports, dismissed by the administration, the White House is starting to make plans for its 2012 re-election campaign.
While 47 percent of voters approve of the job President Obama is doing, almost as many — 45 percent — disapprove.
Earlier this month the president received his lowest job ratings to date when 46 percent approved and 47 percent disapproved (February 2-3, 2009).
Vice President Joe Biden recently said the administration understands why American voters are angry and bluntly stated, “We get it.” Nearly half of voters agree with Biden (45 percent). Yet half — 50 percent — say no, the administration doesn’t get it. That includes over one of five Democrats (22 percent).
More than half of independents (52 percent) think the administration doesn’t “get it,” while 44 percent agree with the vice president that it does.
Finally, American voters disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy by a 56%/40% margin, while also disapproving of Obama’s handling of job creation by a 52%/41% margin. Hotair points out that the latest Gallup polling show similar problems for Obama regarding the public’s approval of continuing with a comprehensive plan if he cannot reach a deal with the GOP. With these grim new personal approval numbers, all double digit net negative, on the key issues of the day such as the economy, job creation, the deficit and health care, Obama faces an uphill struggle in gathering the needed 218 Democratic House and 50 Democratic Senate votes to push through his comprehensive health care plan.
