The most recent McClatchy-Marist poll, which gives Democrats an eight point sampling advantage, shows the president’s approval rating is at 39 percent among registered voters nationally, an all-time low for Obama. And for the first time a majority — 52 percent — disapproves of the job he is doing in office. In fact, the president’s job approval rating, his favorability, and his rating on the economy have hit all-time lows. This data, by the way, comes in the aftermath of the president’s latest jobs speech/plan.
Mr. Obama job approval rating among independents is now less than one in three (32 percent). His approval ratings numbers on the economy are 33 percent approve v. 61 percent disapprove, with the disapproval percentage among independents up to nearly 70 percent (69 percent). And the president’s personal favorability rating is now, for the first time, lower than his personal disapproval rating (46 percent v. 48 percent).
In addition, and by a margin of 49 percent to 36 percent, voters said they definitely plan to vote against Obama. Independents said, by a 53 percent to 28 percent margin, they definitely plan to vote against him. And by 52 percent to 38 percent, voters think he’ll lose to the Republican nominee whoever that is. Even among Democrats, nearly one in three (31 percent) think the Republican nominee will win.
Things are so bad for the president that Sarah Palin – a figure who inspires (depending on the day) hate, contempt, derision and ridicule among the left – now leads Mr. Obama among independents.
To help understand why, consider this data point: three in four Americans still believe the nation is in a recession, while the proportion who thinks the country is moving in the wrong direction (73 percent) is at its highest point in more than a decade.
And in a new USA Today/Gallup survey, eight out of 10 of those polled say the country is in a recession, with a similar number of people think it hasn’t improved in the last year. Sixty-one percent of those polled predict the economy will be “the same or worse” in a year. In 2009, only 35 percent of people believed that the economy would be the same or worse in a year.
If there’s a silver lining in this polling for the president, I can’t find it. I suspect neither can he.
