Poll Offers Brutal News for Obama, Democrats

The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll came out yesterday and it offers brutal news for President Obama and Democrats. It is worth looking at it in some depth.

Overall, Obama’s job approval is unchanged, which might be called good news for the president, except that it remains at a low in this poll for the administration. Forty percent approve versus 54 percent who disapprove. This puts the poll toward the low end of the approval scale, but the NBC/WSJ poll is of registered voters, which probably makes it mildly less disposed to the president.

Obama’s approval numbers on the economy are statistically unchanged from last month, although there is an improvement since December, when it was 39-58. Today it is 43-53. This number is interesting to me because people have been talking up the growing economy, but it does not seem to be translating into politics. I’d note with interest that Gallup’s measure of economic confidence has been flat for six months. The economy has been growing at a pretty consistent 2 percent since it emerged from the recession in the spring of 2009. That rate appears not to be enough to provide a political boost to the president.

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