DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Kramer on June 22, 2011, 11:09:06 AM
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Obama Gets 30% of Americans Certain to Support Re-Election in Economy Poll
By Julianna Goldman - Jun 22, 2011
Americans are growing more dissatisfied with President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy and say it will be hard to vote to re-elect him without seeing significant progress over the next year and a half.
By a margin of 61 percent to 37 percent, a Bloomberg National Poll conducted June 17-20 shows Americans say they believe that Obama will have had his chance to make the economy “substantially better” by the end of 2012.
Only 30 percent of respondents said they are certain to vote for the president and 36 percent said they definitely won’t. Among likely independent voters, only 23 percent said they will back his re-election, while 36 percent said they definitely will look for another candidate.
“As far as the economy goes, I don’t see that he has delivered on the change that he promised,” said Sharon Ortiz, a 38-year-old independent voter from Hampton, Virginia, who supported Obama in 2008. “The jobs that he promised -- I haven’t seen it.”
At the same time, Americans are skeptical that Republican control of the White House and Congress will be a better prescription for their economic wellbeing. Sixty percent said that any Republican candidate will need to move so far to the right on fiscal and social issues to win their party’s nomination that it will be very hard to back the nominee.
Voter Intensity
Even so, the intensity among respondents who strongly agreed about judging Obama on his record of job creation was higher -- 45 percent versus 33 percent -- than those worried about a Republican nominee pushed to the right.
With unemployment and jobs ranking as the most important issue facing the country and lawmakers mired in debates to cut the nation’s long-term debt, the poll’s findings underscore a central challenge for Obama’s re-election team: making the 2012 campaign a choice between competing visions for the country’s future rather than a referendum on his job performance.
“So far Obama’s doing an OK job, not as great as I was hoping for,” said Pam Kaltenbach, 62, a Democratic voter from Chillicothe, Ohio, who supported Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008. “But now the Republicans don’t understand the working man. They don’t tax the rich more, they just want to take away the programs that are needed by the middle class.”
Medicare Worries
In the poll, 49 percent of respondents said they’re worried about Republicans gaining control of the White House and Congress and following through on pledges to slash funding for benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid, outnumbering the 40 percent who said they are concerned about another term for Obama and a continuation of current spending policies. Among independents, 47 percent said they are worried about a Republican takeover compared with 37 percent who are concerned about maintaining the status quo.
“I still want them to cut the deficit and debt, but it’s been growing for years,” said Mark Rawls, 44, an independent voter from Orlando, Florida. “If you cut the deficit now, you might cut the legs of people who are trying to get jobs and on Medicare.”
The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted by Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based firm. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Reagan Ratings
Obama’s ratings dip is reminiscent of former President Ronald Reagan’s early years in office when he was struggling to manage a slowing economy. Seventeen months before Election Day, Reagan’s presidential approval rating was 43 percent -- and he won a second term in a landslide. Obama’s overall job approval stands at 49 percent, with 44 percent disapproving.
The only performance category in which Obama’s approval ratings were higher than his disapproval ratings was dealing with terrorism. Less than two months after the killing of al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, 69 percent of Americans -- including 51 percent of Republicans -- said they approved of his performance on terrorism, while 27 percent didn’t.
With the president poised to announce his plans for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, the poll found that 53 percent of Americans support a gradual pullout over the next couple years compared to 30 percent who want them to come home immediately.
It’s the Economy
Ultimately, the survey showed, Obama’s presidential campaign will hinge on whether the economy improves rather than national security issues.
Recent data shows the recovery losing steam and, with a jobless rate of 9.1 percent, the president has few fiscal options to stimulate the economy. Lawmakers are debating how to cut the nation’s long-term deficits and raise the $14.3 trillion debt-ceiling.
Vice President Joe Biden is leading talks with congressional leaders to reach a deal on reducing the federal- debt ahead of an Aug. 2 deadline, when the Treasury Department projects the government risks defaulting on its obligations -- which Obama has warned would be “disastrous.”
Republicans are insisting on trillions of dollars in savings and no tax increases in exchange for a vote to increase the debt ceiling. Democrats have refused to allow major cuts to the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly, which is contributing to the debt.
Debt Default
Americans are split, 45 percent to 46 percent, on whether Republicans should hold out for more spending cuts even if the delay leads the government to default on its obligations. Only 19 percent say such an outcome would be catastrophic, suggesting such warnings from lawmakers, economists and Wall Street executives aren’t resonating with the public. Still, 52 percent of Americans say a default would be a serious problem.
“Maybe I don’t really understand what all that means if the U.S. defaults, but I do know the other route and I do know what that means,” said Jerry Reynolds, 66, a Democratic voter from Apache Junction, Arizona, who won’t vote again for Obama. “They need to do more on this budget, they need to quit spending money on these wars that are not doing us any good. It’s costing us people and its costing us money.”
By a slight margin, Republicans would be held more accountable than Obama should the financial markets fall as a result of a failure to raise the debt ceiling. Forty-four percent said they would fault Republicans for digging in their heels on spending cuts, while 41 percent would blame Obama for resisting their demands.
Economy Performance Ratings
Obama’s performance ratings drop significantly when the focus turns to his management of the economy, jobs and deficits. By a margin of 61 percent to 32 percent, Americans disapprove of the job Obama is doing to tackle the budget deficit. Fifty-seven percent of respondents disapproved of his efforts to create jobs and overall 57 percent disapproved of his handling of the economy.
“I voted for him in 2008 because of the financial crisis, the housing crisis and he was new and fresh and it seemed like he had energy and ideas to make headway in this,” said Rawls. “He needs to bring the unemployment numbers down.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in Washington at msilva34@bloomberg.net.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-06-22/obama-gets-30-of-americans-certain-to-support-re-election-in-economy-poll.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-06-22/obama-gets-30-of-americans-certain-to-support-re-election-in-economy-poll.html)
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Considering the low, low quality of the GOP candidates and the lack of any of them to actually have any sort of workable plan better than Obama's, is is insane to believe that he does NOT have a very good chance for reelection.
Are you holding out for genius Palin to declare her candidacy?
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Poll: 44% of Americans Worse Off Under Obama
By Mike Dorning - Jun 22, 2011
Two years after the official start of the recovery, the American people remain pessimistic about their current economic circumstances and longer-term prospects.
Fewer than a quarter of people see signs of improvement in the economy, and two-thirds say they believe the country is on the wrong track overall, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted June 17-20.
“Gas prices are higher, grocery prices are higher, transportation prices are higher,” says poll respondent Ronda Brockway, 54, an insurance company manager and political independent who lives in a suburb of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “The jobs situation nationwide is very poor.”
By a 44 percent to 34 percent margin, Americans say they believe they are worse off than when President Barack Obama took office in early 2009, when the U.S. was in the depths of a recession compounded by the September 2008 financial crisis and the economy was losing as many as 820,000 jobs a month.
The gloom covers the immediate future, with fewer than 1 in 10 people expecting unemployment to return to pre-recession levels within the next two years, and it extends to the next generation. More than half of respondents say their children are destined to have a lower standard of living than they do, upending a traditional touchstone of the American Dream.
Higher Than Reagan
The portion of Americans who say they believe the U.S. is on the wrong track is higher than it was at any point during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent after the 1981-82 recession, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. The ABC poll showed the wrong-track number during Reagan’s first term peaking at 57 percent in October 1982. The Bloomberg poll shows 66 percent of Americans think the U.S. is going in the wrong direction now.
As the public grasps for solutions, the Republican Party is breaking through in the message war on the budget and economy. A majority of Americans say job growth would best be revived with prescriptions favored by the party: cuts in government spending and taxes, the Bloomberg Poll shows. Even 40 percent of Democrats share that view.
“Unless you limit the actual money coming in to the government and give businesses a break, I don’t think you’re going to have a bounce-back in the economy,” says poll respondent Michael Jefferys, 37, a business analyst for a building supply manufacturer. The economy “is at a teetering point: Depending on what changes are made, it could take a dramatic fall or start to revive,” says Jefferys, a political independent who lives in Pitman, New Jersey.
Better Vision
Even so, the public remains ambivalent about the Republican Party’s economic stewardship. Asked to rate Obama’s vision for the economy against that of the Republicans, poll respondents favor the president’s by 40 percent to 37 percent, though that is a deterioration from a 12-percentage-point advantage Obama maintained three months ago.
The souring public mood comes as the economy has been buffeted by a heightened sense of crisis over European sovereign debt, manufacturing supply disruptions in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake, and rising gasoline prices during the early months of the year.
Following a string of disappointing data in recent weeks, a number of economists have lowered their growth forecasts for the current quarter and remainder of the year. The median forecast for second-quarter growth among economists surveyed by Bloomberg dropped from 3.3 percent in May to 2.3 percent in June.
Earnings Down
The buying power of Americans’ wages is declining at the fastest rate since 2008, with real average hourly earnings down 1.6 percent during the 12 months ended in May. Job growth also has slowed, and the unemployment rate in May reached 9.1 percent, the highest level so far this year.
Other data point to progress over the past two years, including seven consecutive quarters of economic growth and a more than 50 percent rise in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index during Obama’s presidency. The National Bureau of Economic Research officially dated the end of the recession to June 2009.
Though Americans rate unemployment and the economy as a greater concern than the deficit and government spending, the issues are now closely connected. Sixty-five percent of respondents say they believe the size of the federal deficit is “a major reason” the jobless rate hasn’t dropped significantly.
‘Spend Less’
“In this day and age we all have to spend less, and that includes the government itself,” says poll respondent Carolyn Beller, 66, a retired financial-services worker and independent voter in Hull, Massachusetts. “We all have to put a stop to this nonsense of spending.”
Majorities also cite as major reasons for weak job growth the outsourcing of U.S. companies’ production to foreign facilities, structural changes in the economy and uncertainty about government regulations and taxes. Fewer than half cite failures of Obama’s economic stimulus or cuts in government spending as contributing reasons. Fifty-eight percent say the economy needs time to heal in the wake of the financial crisis.
Republican criticism of the federal budget growth has gained traction with the public. Fifty-five percent of poll respondents say cuts in spending and taxes would be more likely to bring down unemployment than would maintaining or increasing government spending, as Obama did in his 2009 stimulus package.
Even with their concerns about the deficit, Americans aren’t ready to pay more in taxes: More than 6 of 10 say they are unwilling to do so, even as 77 percent say it’s inevitable taxes will rise as a result of a deal to curb the deficit.
Tax Breaks
The public shows more openness to reducing or eliminating popular tax breaks, if accompanied by lower rates, an approach advocated by leaders of the president’s bipartisan deficit commission. Still, Americans are divided over giving up some of the breaks and oppose reductions in others.
A 49 percent to 45 percent plurality would accept a lowering of the mortgage tax deduction. The country is almost evenly split on cutting tax benefits for education expenses, with 49 percent favoring that and 48 percent opposed.
The divisions are also close on other deductions: 48 percent of Americans favor reducing tax breaks for charitable contributions compared with 47 percent who are opposed; 46 percent favor lower deductions for child-care expenses compared with 50 percent who don’t.
Larger margins oppose rollbacks of tax laws that encourage employee benefits. By a margin of 51 percent to 40 percent, poll respondents oppose a reduction in the exclusion of employer-paid health insurance from taxable income. Lower tax breaks for 401(k) contributions are opposed by 54 percent with 39 percent in favor.
Support for limiting the tax breaks is strongest among low- income Americans, who are less likely to benefit from the deductions because fewer of them itemize their income tax returns.
The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted by Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based firm. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Dorning in Washington D.C. at mdorning@b
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net.
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Considering the low, low quality of the GOP candidates and the lack of any of them to actually have any sort of workable plan better than Obama's, is is insane to believe that he does NOT have a very good chance for reelection.
Are you holding out for genius Palin to declare her candidacy?
but the low quality of obama combined with him being an utter failure makes anybody look like a winner over obama in 2012.
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XO, is this you?
(http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/crime/2011/06/21/us_airways_3275x368.jpg)
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No, that is the ninth Republican to declare himself as a candidate.
Or possibly, you.
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One more reason for a defeat in 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/22/usa-debt-idUSN1E75L0GC20110622 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/22/usa-debt-idUSN1E75L0GC20110622)
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No, that is the ninth Republican to declare himself as a candidate.
Or possibly, you.
I take it you are one of the 30% that will vote for Obama in 2012. Well I am one of the 70% that will vote for the other guy or gal!
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I must be nuts, because I remember that Bill Clinton won twice with less than half of the vote.
It only required that the conservatives be devided a little.
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There is NO CHANCE whatever that the GOP will get any 70% of the vote.
In 1932, FDR got 57%
In 1964, LBJ got 61%
In 1984, Reagan got 58%
No one in recent times has gotten 70%
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There is NO CHANCE whatever that the GOP will get any 70% of the vote.
In 1932, FDR got 57%
In 1964, LBJ got 61%
In 1984, Reagan got 58%
No one in recent times has gotten 70%
Bingo, you just broke the code! That makes Obama a 1-term president. Thank you for making my point ya big dummy!
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You are truly the densest thing in the universe. Most red dwarfs are no denser.
You claim that whomever the GOP decides to run for president will poll 70% or more.
I pointed out that NO ONE has done this in this century. This is true for both parties.
And you claim that this proves that Obama will lose.
It only indicates that the probability that Obama or any Republican will poll over 70% is statistically very improbable.
You don't understand facts. You don't seem to understand anything.
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I never claimed that whomever the GOP decides to run for president will poll 70% or more. Nice try idiot!
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I never claimed that whomever the GOP decides to run for president will poll 70% or more. Nice try idiot!
Oh, yes it is.
This is what you said:
I take it you are one of the 30% that will vote for Obama in 2012. Well I am one of the 70% that will vote for the other guy or gal!
Dimwit!
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I never claimed that whomever the GOP decides to run for president will poll 70% or more. Nice try idiot!
Oh, yes it is.
This is what you said:
I take it you are one of the 30% that will vote for Obama in 2012. Well I am one of the 70% that will vote for the other guy or gal!
Dimwit!
Ever heard of other candidates besides the Republican & Democrat? and the 70% doesn't represent registered voters either! The bottom line is 70% of the people are not interested in voting for Obama, he's TOAST!
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Other guy or gal indicates ONE opposing candidate.
You made a dumb statement.
I called your bluff.
Moron.
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Other guy or gal indicates ONE opposing candidate.
You made a dumb statement.
I called your bluff.
Moron.
only a moron would vote for Obama, I didn't, you did!