Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 6/15-18/2009. All adults. MoE 2% (6/8-6/11/2009 results):
| FAVORABLE | UNFAVORABLE | NET CHANGE |
---|
PRESIDENT OBAMA | 63 (64) | 33 (32) | -2 |
| | | |
PELOSI: | 34 (33) | 55 (56) | +2 |
REID: | 33 (32) | 53 (53) | +1 |
McCONNELL: | 23 (22) | 60 (61) | +2 |
BOEHNER: | 16 (15) | 62 (63) | +2 |
| | | |
CONGRESSIONAL DEMS: | 43 (42) | 50 (51) | +2 |
CONGRESSIONAL GOPS: | 13 (12) | 72 (74) | +3 |
| | | |
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: | 50 (50) | 44 (43) | -1 |
REPUBLICAN PARTY: | 24 (22) | 71 (73) | +4 |
Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.
Pretty much everyone gets a marginal bump in their numbers, the exceptions being President Obama, and the Democratic Party at large.
In our tracking poll, the President's numbers have been on a small but consistent decline for the past several weeks:
Looking at other polls on President Obama's approval (a separate measurement than favorability, but one that tends to run on a parallel track), we do not see a definitive track, however. Therefore, it may be a reasonable conclusion that our tracking poll is not catching a weakening Obama, but rather that our tracking poll may just be coming into line with other pollsters:
In our tracking poll, Obama's numbers took the biggest hit this week with Democrats (which could be be DOMA blowback, but could also just as easily be float within the margin, since the shift was just 2%), and Independents. Here, it is worth noting that our tracking poll has always had Obama doing better with Indies than most pollsters. Therefore, this could simply be a matter of coming back to Earth, as it were.
The other story of the week is the improvement over the past few weeks in the GOP's numbers. For Democrats, at least in the immediate future, this does not seem to be a major cause for concern. The simple fact of the matter is that the Republicans had to hit rock bottom at some point. Those reasonably expecting them to have two percent approval by July were begging to be let down.
The second reason not to be concerned is that it will be quite a while before the GOP's numbers match the Democrats, even if the current trendlines held up for an extended period of time:
The third reason not to be concerned is that the ability of the GOP to rebound out of the cellar and into...well...about a foot or so above the cellar has not provided a great bump in their electoral prospects, as this week's Congressional ballot question attests:
Congressional Ballot Test--2010 Election (6/7-6/11 in parentheses)
Democrats 44% (43%)
Republicans 30% (28%)
Undecided 26%
As the (somewhat high) undecided vote is chipped away, the GOP picked up more than the Democrats. However, it was not at a substantial rate, and looking at last week's numbers, it is owed in part to the fact that more Republicans came off of the "undecided" fence than did Democrats.