Bad News for Democrats

August 19, 2009 5:07 PM | | Comments (1)

The number of Americans with a favorable view of the Democratic Party has dipped below 50 percent for the first time since President Obama’s inauguration, according to a new poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

The poll found that just 49 percent of Americans have a good opinion of the party that controls Congress and the White House. Sixty-two percent had a favorable opinion in a similar poll conducted shortly after Obama took office, and in April, 59 percent of Americans were still supportive of the Democrats.

The survey of 2,010 people, conducted Aug. 11-17, also found that 51 percent still approve of Obama’s job performance, while 37 percent disapprove. But the president has lost a lot of ground with independents, who are now almost evenly divided in their opinions of Obama’s job performance. Forty-five percent approve of what he’s doing, and 43 percent disapprove.

In June, 56 percent of independents approved of Obama’s performance to just 29 percent who disapproved. At the same time, only 40 percent of independents have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, which is a decline of 12 points since April.

For Republicans, the news was a bit better. The survey found that the GOP’s favorable rating remains steady at about 40 percent. But a growing number of Americans — 63 percent — now believe that the president and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill “are not working together to deal with important issues facing the nation,” and they blame Republicans more than the president. In June, 50 percent said the two parties were not cooperating.

The number of people who fault Obama for being uncooperative was 17 percent, while 29 percent of those polled blamed Republican leaders for not working with the president.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent.

More from CQ Politics

Categories: Pew Research Center

Tags: Congress, Democrats, Obama, Republicans

    Comments

  1. It is not surprising that President Obama's popularity numbers have fallen in the midst of complex and unjustifiably partisan fight over health care.

    This sort of a political struggle brings down everyone's favorability numbers as shown by the catastrphic drop in the GOP's popularity and the public's assignment of blame to the GOP's partisan obstructionism.

    President Obama's refusal to engage in negative campaigning and his steadfastness in keeping the debate on issues and on health care reform will redound to his credit after health care reform is passed by the Congress.

    Posted by: Robert Chapman Author Profile Page | August 23, 2009 7:39 PM

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