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Posts Tagged ‘Nevada Town’

Strong Public Support for the Obama Presidency Falls to New Low

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

Strong support for of Obama's Presidency dwindled to a new low today: 22% of likely voters.

Despite the return of 2007-2008 Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to an active role in molding President Obama’s political strategy, today’s Rasmussen Reports daily polling shows that only 22% of likely voters strongly approve of Obama’s job performance, a new low of Obama’s Presidency, while 41% strongly disapprove:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 22% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. That is the lowest level of strong approval yet recorded for this President.

Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19. The Approval Index has been lower only on one day during Barack Obama’s thirteen months in office. The previous low came on December 22 as the Senate was preparing to approve its version of the proposed health care legislation. The current lows come as the President is once again focusing attention on the health care legislation.

Including soft supporters and opponents of the President’s job performance, President Barack Obama’s overall job approval now stands at 45% approval and 54% disapproval amongst likely voters, also near his all-time low of disapproval. Today’s polling, as well as other polling done by Gallup, the NYT and CNN, demostrates the perils of President Obama’s renewed focus on health care legislation with an “impassioned plea” for the passage of Obamacare at the Nevada town hall, in yesterday’s weekly Saturday morning message and the upcoming “Health Care Summit” on February 25, 2010. Obama fell to his lowest ratings of his Presidency at prior moments of intense focus on health care reform, and it appears his renewed focus over the past few days is eliciting a similiar reaction amongst the American public.

On the day of Scott Brown’s election to the US Senate in Massachuetts, President Obama decided to bring Plouffe back into his inner circle and subsequently shifted rhetorical gears to again focus on bipartisanship, with an emphasis on economic policy. That shift in Obama’s political strategy, and Obama’s performances in the State of the Union and at the House Republican retreat, appeared to staunch the bleeding of Obama’s core supporters while providing him a slight bounce amongst independents.

As noted above, the Obama Administration’s return to an intense focus on health care reform in the leadup to the “Health Care Summit” on February 25, 2010 appears to have halted any positive momentum from the Plouffe strategic shift and once again led Obama to fresh lows in strong supporters of his Presidency. The Obama Administration, the Democrat Party and special interest groups that support Obamacare all argue that once passed by Congress and signed by Obama, the public’s strongly negative view of Obamacare will reverse itself. As Obama’s job approval ratings have reached their lows at moments of public focus on health care reform, that theory may not be tested after all as Congress may balk at taking the last leap by passing Obamacare in final form for Obama’s signature via reconciliation in the face of strong public disapproval and GOP condemnation.

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