Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 8/24-27/2009. All adults. MoE 2% (8/17-20/2009 results):
| FAVORABLE | UNFAVORABLE | NET CHANGE |
|---|
| PRESIDENT OBAMA | 55 (58) | 40 (38) | -5 |
| | | |
| PELOSI: | 33 (34) | 58 (57) | -2 |
| REID: | 32 (33) | 57 (56) | -2 |
| McCONNELL: | 18 (17) | 64 (65) | +2 |
| BOEHNER: | 14 (13) | 64 (65) | +2 |
| | | |
| CONGRESSIONAL DEMS: | 40 (41) | 54 (53) | -2 |
| CONGRESSIONAL GOPS: | 14 (12) | 73 (75) | +4 |
| | | | |
| DEMOCRATIC PARTY: | 43 (44) | 50 (49) | -2 |
| REPUBLICAN PARTY: | 20 (18) | 71 (72) | +3 |
Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.
A continuation of the base erosion that began to raise its head last week, in addition to (for the first time) a significant dip in support from Independent voters, drove the Democrats lower for the second consecutive week.
President Obama's favorabilities dropped the most substantially this week, propelled by another three-point drop in support from Democrats (down to 80%, the lowest of his presidency), as well as a big shift among Independents (from 66% last week to 62% this week).
For the Democratic Party, and Congressional Democrats, the more modest dip in their numbers was driven, in equal parts, by Democrats and Independents.
On the flip side of the coin, the GOP and their counterparts in Congress get a modest bump this week, driven in fairly equal parts by Republicans and Independents.
The fairly interesting backdrop to this week's numbers is the fact that, for the first time in several weeks, the right track/wrong track metric saw some improvement, edging back up from a spread of - 11 (41/52) to a spread of - 9 (42/53).
There are only two saving graces for the Democratic Party in these numbers. The first is that they maintain the same six-point lead in the 2010 Congressional preference test, despite the erosion of their numbers elsewhere:
The other saving grace is that despite this rather palpable two-week slide, there still remains a substantial difference in the public perceptions of the two major parties. To put it another way, the Democrats will need several more weeks of disastrous results, and the Republicans will need several more restorative weeks, in order for the two parties to return to parity:
This fact is demonstrated by a new poll out today from The Clarus Research Group (hat tip: Pollster). The president of the Clarus Group is Ron Faucheux, known to a lot of "horse race" geeks as the editor of Campaigns and Elections Magazine back in the day.
While the Clarus poll shows President Obama with middling approval numbers (49/39), it also finds that he has leads over the likely 2012 Republican field ranging from nine points to 19 points.
It is clear that while the Democrats have had a brutal stretch (ignited in part, by a rebellion among their frustrated base), the electorate is still far from sold on the Republican Party as an acceptable alternative.
