Obama’s Job Approval Hits New Low In Quinnipiac Poll

Another poll brings more bad news for the Obama Administration:

A year after President Barack Obama’s political honeymoon ended, his job approval rating has dropped to a negative 44 – 48 percent, his worst net score ever, and American voters say by a narrow 39 – 36 percent margin that they would vote for an unnamed Republican rather than President Obama in 2012, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 48 – 43 percent approval for Obama in a May 26 national poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University and a 57 – 33 percent approval last July, just before the political firestorm created by opposition to his health care plan galvanized political opponents and turned independent voters against him.

In this latest survey of more than 2,000 voters, independent voters disapprove of Obama 52 – 38 percent and say 37 – 27 percent they would vote for a Republican contender in 2012.

American voters also say 48 – 40 percent Obama does not deserve reelection in 2012.

On specific issues, the public’s perception of the President is even worse:

Voter approval of the President’s handling of some of the nation’s problems shows:

* Disapprove 56 – 39 percent of his handling of the economy;
* Disapprove 46 – 43 percent of his handling of foreign policy;
* Disapprove 51 – 41 percent of his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill;
* Disapprove 58 – 30 percent of his handling of illegal immigration;
* Approve 46 – 34 percent of his nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.

“The massive disapproval of his handling of illegal immigration stems from voter opposition to his decision to have the government ask the federal courts to throw out the Arizona law. They say 60 – 28 percent the lawsuit is a bad idea,” said Brown.

Support for the war in Afghanistan hit a new low with 48 percent saying it was the right thing to do and 43 percent saying America should not be involved. That’s not much different from May’s 49 – 42 percent support, but markedly down from 56 – 36 percent in April.

If anything, things seem to be getting worse for the President and, while there’s bound to be some point in the future when he’ll see an up-tick in the polls for one reason or another, the overall trend seems to be downward.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Brummagem Joe says:

    “the overall trend seems to be downward.”

    More like he’s treading water I’d have said. I don’t pay much attention to polls but a lot of blogs usually have a composite average number on their home page and it seems to have been in the range 45-48 for months.

  2. Tano says:

    “More like he’s treading water I’d have said. ”

    Exactly so. Six months or so. Rather remarkable stability.

    Even this Q poll – they fail to mention that this “worst score ever” for Obama, actually ties their own result from April, where he also had a 44% approval. It went up from there, and now back down.

    The trend is oscillation around a pretty consistent horizontal.

  3. Drew says: