Only 28% Of Arizonans Approve Of President’s Performance
Barack Obama surprised many in 2008 by keeping John McCain’s margin of victory in his home state of Arizona in single digits. Based on a new statewide poll, though, I doubt that will be happening in 2012:
PHOENIX – Most Arizonans no longer think Barack Obama is doing a decent job as president.
A new Behavior Research Poll released Sunday shows that nearly four out of every 10 Arizonans now rate Obama’s performance as poor or very poor. That’s up 5 points from the same survey taken in January.
What’s different is that the number of those who think he’s doing an excellent or good job has plummeted.
Three months after taking office, fully 51 percent of Arizonans gave Obama positive ratings, even though the state went for hometown favorite John McCain in the 2008 election.
A year into office, that had slid to 40 percent. But by the time pollster Earl de Berge conducted this latest survey, between June 30 and July 11, only 28 percent of Arizonans were willing to say they like the job he’s doing.
According to de Berge, much of that slide tracks with a separate poll he does asking Arizonans about their views on the economy and current job market conditions.
“As might be expected, those who think the job market is static or worsening have the least favorable view of his performance,” de Berge said.
(…)
Obama maintains his popularity with Democrats, 52 percent of whom still have a positive assessment of his work. Still, that’s down from 85 percent in April 2009.
His positive rating among independents, which was 54 percent in that first post-election survey, now has dropped to 22 percent. And 8 percent of Republicans now score his performance as excellent or good.
Ouch.