Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 6/29-7/02/2009. All adults. MoE 2% (6/22-25/2009 results):
| FAVORABLE | UNFAVORABLE | NET CHANGE |
---|
PRESIDENT OBAMA | 63 (62) | 32 (32) | +1 |
| | | |
PELOSI: | 34 (33) | 56 (57) | +2 |
REID: | 32 (32) | 54 (55) | +1 |
McCONNELL: | 23 (24) | 60 (59) | -2 |
BOEHNER: | 16 (17) | 61 (60) | -2 |
| | | |
CONGRESSIONAL DEMS: | 44 (43) | 49 (49) | +1 |
CONGRESSIONAL GOPS: | 13 (14) | 71 (71) | -1 |
| | | |
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: | 50 (49) | 43 (43) | +1 |
REPUBLICAN PARTY: | 23 (25) | 71 (70) | -3 |
Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.
Since none of the movement this week is terribly pronounced, there is a temptation to call this something of a status quo week. However, it is WHERE the movement took place that leads us to a few conclusions.
Without exception, every Democrat saw better numbers than last week, even if it was just incrementally.
Without exception, every Republican saw WORSE numbers than last week, even if it was just incrementally.
This is especially notable since the Republicans in the poll had spent most of the last month rebounding from the basement-level numbers they were staring at the end of the month of May.
To what do we attribute the reversal of fortune this week? The easy, and most tempting, target is Mark Sanford. The Sanford imbroglio broke in the middle of the week last week, and therefore last week's tracker would not have been able to gauge the full effect of public disgust with another tale of a conservative Republican gone wrong. Sanford, this week, managed to keep the story alive with his own mouth, as well as the escalating calls for his resignation.
That said, it is not for certain that this is simply a Sanford reaction, or revulsion. There is at least some evidence that this might have as much to do with the Clean Energy bill as it does the not-so-clean Sanford adventure.
For the Democrats, the bulk of the increase (indeed, virtually all of it) can be attributed to a marked increase in support from Democratic voters. This is strongest in the case of Nancy Pelosi, as you can see below:
Change in Net Postive/Negative Favorability from 6/25/09 to 7/02/09, Democratic Voters ONLY
Barack Obama +2 (from +80 last week to +82 this week)
Nancy Pelosi +4 (from +52 last week to +56 this week)
Harry Reid +2 (from +38 last week to +40 this week)
Congressional Democrats +2 (from +64 last week to +66 this week)
The Democratic Party +1 (from +71 last week to +72 this week)
If there has been a substantial complaint from Democrats about the early performance of this Congress and this President, it has been that they have been craving more action than they have been receiving. House passage of a major bill like the Clean Energy bill is the kind of action those voters have been waiting for, and they seem to have rewarded Democrats (and Pelosi, in particular) with better numbers.
The Republicans, on the other hand, see their slide register across the board, and just from one demographic band. With the Republican Party's sliding numbers this week (down three from the previous week), their slide was slightly more pronounced among Independents and nonvoters. This could well be a Sanford response, but it could also be continued frustration that the GOP has apparently gone all-in on being obstructionists, with their almost universal lack of support for the energy measure and their continued public position of opposing anything coming out of the Obama administration.
On this week's generic ballot test, the numbers are almost identical to last week's, and similar to where they have been all month:
Would you like to see more Republicans or Democrats elected to Congress in 2010? (6/18 in parentheses)
Democrats 42 (43)
Republicans 29 (29)
Not Sure 29 (28)
Counterintuitively, what little change we find in the 2010 Congressional ballot test moves in the REPUBLICAN direction, albeit by a single point. The Democrats still enjoy a double-digit lead on that question, as they have since we started asking that question a little more than a month ago.
UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, the newbie tried to do graphics. Is that what you young whippersnappers call an "epic fail"? It's been nuked. Lo siento mucho...Resized and fixed. Call it a learning experience!