At the beginning of June, Obama had a 64% personal approval rating in that poll. As of today, he has slipped to a 57% approval rating. That's a slide of 7 percentage points in a single month. Further, if you look at the fact that he had a "taking office" approval rating of 68 to 69%, Obama has suffered a loss of job approval in the month of June, alone, that is greater than all the previous months' losses combined since he took office. This suggests a loss that is rapidly accelerating.
If this trend continues and he loses another 7% in July, he will be right on the edge of a 50% approval rating. Anything lower than that would suggest that he has become an "unpopular" President. And if that does happen, he would have done so in just 5 months.
His disapproval numbers are even more disconcerting. Upon taking office, he had a mere 10% disapproval rating. Now, he is at 35%. That's a net dissatisfaction increase of 25 percentage points. Combined with the 12% decline in his job approval since taking office, America's dissatisfaction with this President is increasing at a factor of 2 to 1. This also means that previously undecided respondents are quickly moving into the disapproval camp faster than those who previously supported this President. When Obama took office, about 21 percent of the poll respondents were undecided. Today, that number is down to 8 percent with the majority of those, if not all, becoming dissatisfied with Obama. This is important, because those that were undecided at the time that he took office showed a logical restraint by taking a wait and see attitude about this President. At the same time, those who gave Obama a high approval rating at the time he took office, with no job performance to speak of, were being totally disingenuous. I think Obama should really worry about all the fence-sitters who have gone negative towards him.
We know from other polls that the bulk of this erosion in popularity is also coming from Independent voters. In just one month, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reported that the popularity of Obama among Independent voters fell to 45% from a prior month's 60% (See Full Story). Anyway you shake it, that is a big drop from a group that tends to shape elections and who swing approval/disapproval rates in the polls. Independents are certainly less ideologically bound to any particular political party and are a very good indicator of the general satisfaction/dissatisfaction of any politician.
That same NBC/WSJ opinion poll also reported Obama's overall rating at 56%; which is very close to the Gallup number of 57%. Because of this synchronicity between the two polls, I think you can be somewhat assured that the loss of Independent voter support is genuine.
Another sign of waning support for this President and his policies didn't come from a poll but from ABC's ratings when it aired the all-day-with-Obama on healthcare show last week. ABC was third in the rankings that night. The Obama-show had less than 4 million viewers and, during one time slot, actually failed to beat a rerun of a sit-com. I think if that same ABC stunt had been pulled right after Obama took office the ratings would have been at least four times that of this week's actual ratings; maybe even higher. But, now the low ratings show disinterest in what has truly become an overexposed President that is more in love with his own words than in producing actual results.
I think the polls are reflecting the fact that this guy's "flowing" and "glowing" words aren't matching up with the realities on the ground. Things aren't happening the way he promised and he will be punished, popularity-wise, for the deceptions being attempted in and by his well-delivered speeches.
As I had said long ago, this guy is a "Flim-Flam Man" and a lot of people are starting to realize it!
Note: The Gallup daily tracking poll can be viewed at this link (Click Here To View).
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