Poll: Obama worst president since WWII
The Hill ^ | July 2, 2014 | Justin Sink with Peter Sullivan
Posted on 7/2/2014 8:23:22 AM by Cincinatus' Wife
President Obama is the worst president since World War II, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday.
The poll finds that 33 percent of voters say Obama is the worst since the war, with George W. Bush trailing in second place at 28 percent. The only other president in double digits, at 13 percent, is Richard Nixon, who resigned from office after the Watergate scandal.
The results raise the possibility that voters are choosing the presidents who are freshest in their memory. Or they could just think that this century has produced historically bad presidents.
Obama ran in 2008 as a change from the deeply unpopular Bush, but the poll finds that in a head-to-head matchup, more voters now think Obama is a worse president than Bush. Forty percent say Obama is worse than Bush, while 39 percent say he is better.
Obama won his 2012 reelection with a healthy 4-percentage-point margin over Mitt Romney in the national popular vote, but voters are now feeling some regret on that choice. Forty-five percent say the country would be better off if Romney had won, compared to 38 percent who say it would be worse.
That includes 10 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of independents who say they now wish the Republican nominee had won.
"Over the span of 69 years of American history and 12 presidencies, President Barack Obama finds himself with President George W. Bush at the bottom of the popularity barrel," Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement.
"Would Mitt have been a better fit? More voters in hindsight say yes."
Following the healthcare.gov rollout, failures at Veterans Affairs and other problems, voters say the Obama administration is not competent to run the government, 54 to 44 percent.
The president is in negative territory on a slew of key issues, from the economy (40 percent approve) to foreign policy (37 percent) and healthcare (40 percent) to terrorism (44 percent).
The one issue area where Obama gets positive marks is the environment, where voters approve of Obama’s handling, 50 to 40 percent.
In another sliver of good news in an otherwise brutal poll for Obama, his approval rating ticked up from a low of 38 percent in December, to 40 percent.
More than half of all Americans, 51 percent, say Obama cares about their needs and problems, and voters are evenly split at 48 percent - on whether Obama is honest and trustworthy.
The survey carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
