President Obama is facing some ominous signs on the key issues of the economy and health care with voters demonstrating some strong skepticism about his handling of both those issues, according to a survey conducted for National Public Radio July 22-26.
However, another poll out today from George Washington University (read our post about it here) indicates that while Obama may be losing some ground, voters still favor him and his policies, along with those of congressional Democrats, more than those of the Republican opposition when measured by favorability and approval numbers and who is trusted more on a range of issues
Forty-eight 48 percent of voters said his economic policies have run up a record deficit while failing to end the recession or slow job losses while 45 percent said Obama had helped avert an even worse crisis and was building the foundation for recovery.
Still, 56 percent hold former President Bush responsible for the current state of the economy while 32 percent say the burden of responsibility has passed to Obama.
On health care, asked their views of what they knew about proposals put forth by Obama and congressional Democrats for an overhaul, 47 percent opposed the plans while 42 percent favored. The largest contingent of voters were those who "strongly" opposed the proposals (38 percent).
Voters gave a thumbs-down on the Congress, disapproving its performance by 61 percent to 33 percent.
Asked to rate the political parties on a scale of 1-to-10 (with 10 being the best mark) on how good a job they are doing in addressing the countries priorities, 51 percent put the Republicans at a "4" or under while 44 percent gave the Democrats the same grades. Twenty-three percent gave Republicans a "5" compared to 17 percent for the Democrats, while 38 percent put the Democrats in the 6 to 10 range compared to 24 percent for the Republicans.
The NPR poll was the second one today that had Republicans and Democrats running neck-and-neck in a generic match-up for the 2010 congressional elections.
The survey had those supporting or leaning to Democratic candidates tied at 43 percent with those supporting or leaning towards Republicans. The George Washington University "Battleground" poll conducted July 19-23 had voters in the 2010 congressional elections leaning towards the Democrats by 43 percent to 40 percent with 17 percent undecided. Both polls were of "likely" voters.
As we noted in our post on the Battleground poll, the generic question is not a good predictor when it comes to how voters will actually cast their ballots when given the choice of actual candidates. CQ Politics' race ratings for the House that were released this week (see also our race ratings map found that, at best, 100 congressional districts out of 435 offered any chance of a seat changing party hands and only about half that are really likely to be highly competitive.
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