Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 9/8-11. Registered voters. MoE ±3.1% (Obama trendlines 8/25-28, all others 8/18-21):
|
FAVORABLE |
UNFAVORABLE |
NET CHANGE |
PRESIDENT OBAMA |
48 (45) |
49 (51) |
5 |
|
APPROVE |
DISAPPROVE |
NET CHANGE |
PRESIDENT OBAMA |
43 (42) |
53 (53) |
1 |
JOHN BOEHNER |
29 (25) |
47 (49) |
6 |
NANCY PELOSI |
29 (29) |
59 (58) |
-1 |
CONGRESSIONAL DEMS |
31 (33) |
58 (59) |
-1 |
CONGRESSIONAL GOPS |
27 (24) |
62 (66) |
7 |
After three straight weeks of record lows, President Obama's job approval finally halted its downward descent. (Note that we did not poll over Labor Day weekend, so the prior trendline is from two weeks ago rather than our usual one.) We also decided to include a different question to see how hardened voters' attitudes are either toward or against the president:
Q: How likely are you to vote for Barack Obama next year: will you definitely vote for him, are you leaning toward voting for him, are you leaning toward voting against him, will you definitely vote against him, or are you completely undecided?
Definitely vote for: 33
Leaning toward voting for: 13
Leaning toward voting against: 11
Definitely vote against him: 38
Completely undecided: 5
If you add the leaners to the definites, you get 46% who either will or might vote for Obama, and 49% who may not or won't. Of course, we don't elect presidents by a national popular vote in this country, but only four times has a candidate won the White House while failing to win a plurality of votes cast. Importantly, no incumbent has ever done this, and in fact, the narrowest re-election victory of all time was George W. Bush's 2.5% win over John Kerry in 2004. That's not to say such a thing couldn't happen, but it's certainly not something you'd want to bank on.
Of course, questions like this may show Obama in rougher shape than he actually is, since the wording here doesn't require respondents to think about how awful the GOP field is — something which seems to be Obama's biggest saving grace so far, when he's paired up in actual head-to-head matchups. And another good sign is that the president is running ahead of his job approvals, which stand at 43-53. That is to say, even though some voters don't like the job he's doing, a handful are still willing to vote for him — 3% of the sample in this case. Still, with election day just 14 months away now, these aren't numbers I'd want to take into the voting booth.