Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/19/2009-10/22/2009. All adults. MoE 2% (Last weeks results in parentheses):
| FAVORABLE | UNFAVORABLE | NET CHANGE |
|---|
| PRESIDENT OBAMA | 56 (55) | 37 (37) | +1 |
| | | |
| PELOSI: | 38 (37) | 54 (55) | +2 |
| REID: | 32 (33) | 56 (57) | 0 |
| McCONNELL: | 16 (17) | 66 (64) | -3 |
| BOEHNER: | 13 (13) | 63 (62) | -1 |
| | | |
| CONGRESSIONAL DEMS: | 40 (39) | 53 (55) | +3 |
| CONGRESSIONAL GOPS: | 15 (16) | 70 (69) | -2 |
| | | | |
| DEMOCRATIC PARTY: | 42 (41) | 50 (51) | +2 |
| REPUBLICAN PARTY: | 20 (21) | 67 (67) | -1 |
Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.
For the second consecutive week, there is a very distinct pattern in the Daily Kos State of the Nation tracking poll. Democrats, with the sole exception of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who holds steady), get a bump in their favorabilities ranging from one to three points. Republicans, meanwhile, see their favorabilities dip, again within a range of one to three points.
It has taken roughly six weeks, but the relative gains made by the GOP during the final month of the summer have evaporated.
What accounts for the shift?
Let's look first at the President. The recovery in the President's numbers can be owed, almost exclusively, to the recovery of his base. At his polling nadir in the first week of September, President Obama had a +9 split in his favorability spread (52/43), the lowest ever recorded in the Daily Kos tracking poll. Seven weeks later, Obama is essentially the same with Republicans (he has improved incrementally from 4/94 to 6/92) and Independents (from 57/39 to 56/34). With Democrats, however, Obama is golden again, having risen from 77/14 in early September to a very healthy 89/5 today.
Nancy Pelosi has seen a similar bump from her base (from 69/21 then to 80/10 now), but she has also seen a healthy bump from Independents (from 20/73 to 26/69). Harry Reid's numbers have not seen the same recovery as Obama's and Pelosi's, probably because he has seen a less robust rise in his favorability ratings among Democrats (from 59/26 to 63/26). Also, to counter any notion that forsaking the base has bought support elsewhere, Reid has seen his favorability spread among Independents dip in the past seven weeks (from 27/66 to 26/68).
For the GOP, however, the story is very, very different.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has actually seen his numbers improve among his Republican base (from 51/14 to 53/11). His numbers with Independents, however, have tanked: he stood at an unimpressive 13/70 spread in September. Today, his spread with Independents is a toxic 7/74. For John Boehner, the effect was muted, in part because his numbers with Independents have always been lousy (they currently stand at a enviable spread of 5/70).
In a potentially critical indicator for party enthusiasm as we head into an election year, for the first time in nearly two months the Democratic Party gets a higher level of favorability from their partisans (73%) than Republicans do from their partisans (72%).
Perhaps most importantly, looking ahead to 2010, the Democrats find themselves with their largest lead on the generic ballot question in nearly three months:
QUESTION: Would you like to see more Democrats or Republicans elected to Congress in 2010? (Last Week In Parentheses)
Democrats 37 (35)
Republicans 28 (29)
Not Sure 35 (36)
With more than a third of the electorate still on the fence, there is certainly no cause for complacency among Democrats. That said, this is a considerable improvement over early September, when that lead had dissipated down to three points (32/29).
