Obama’s Leadership Ratings Fall To A New Low
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
President Obama’s job approval ratings have taken a dive this week in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, and the number of voters who give him favorable ratings for leadership has fallen to its lowest level since he took office in January 2009.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 37% of Likely U.S. Voters now say the president is doing a good or excellent job as a leader. Forty percent (40%) rate his performance as poor.
Last month, right after the president’s State of the Union speech, 47% of voters viewed his leadership positively. At that time, the number who gave Obama poor marks (33%) fell to its lowest level since September 2009.
Twenty-seven percent (27%) now view the president's leadership style as too confrontational, while slightly more (29%) say it’s too cooperative. Thirty-one percent (31%) think his leadership is just about right.
Another 12% are undecided.
Since late January 2009, the number of voters who say the president is too confrontational has ranged from a low of 13% to a high of 32%. At the same time, the number who says he’s too cooperative has run from 17% to 38%.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 20-21, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen
Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Female voters think the president is doing a better job than male voters do. Fifty percent (50%) of government employees say Obama is doing a good or excellent job, compared to just 35% of those who work in the private sector.
A solid majority of GOP voters (65%) and a plurality of voters not affiliated with either political party (43%) rate the president’s leadership as poor, a view shared by only 13% of Democrats. Seventy percent (70%) of Democrats view his performance as good or excellent.
Most of the Political Class (91%) rates Obama’s leadership favorably, while 51% of Mainstream voters give him poor marks.
Deficit reduction was a key part of Obama’s recent State of the Union speech, but few voters expect him to hit his goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Most voters (55%) don’t think the president’s proposed $3.7 trillion federal budget includes enough spending cuts.
Yet while voters may question how the president is handling the economy, most still blame his predecessor, George W. Bush, for the problems he's trying to deal with.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/february_2011/obama_s_leadership_ratings_fall_to_a_new_lowCue that 240 spin.
