Politics

Poll: Seven out of ten voters say country on wrong track, majority say Obama shouldn’t be re-elected

Jamie Weinstein Senior Writer
Font Size:

Seven out of ten registered voters say the country is on the wrong track and a majority says that President Obama doesn’t deserve to be re-elected, according to a poll set to be released Tuesday that has been obtained in full exclusively by The Daily Caller.

Resurgent Republic’s survey, which it finished conducting exactly one year out from the 2012 election, shows that even a plurality of Democrats views the country as heading in the wrong direction, with 45 percent lamenting the direction the country and only 41 percent saying the country is on the right track. The overall wrong track number is the highest Resurgent Republic has recorded since it began polling registered voters in April 2009.

A majority of survey respondents indicated that America’s economy, the federal government’s financial situation and the government’s ability to solve problems have all gotten worse since President Obama was inaugurated in January 2009. Fifty percent of respondents indicated that America’s standing in the world has declined since Obama’s inauguration, rather than gotten better or stayed about the same.

Asked about their own financial situation, a plurality of respondents — 45 percent — indicated it had remained about the same since Obama’s inauguration, while 34 percent said it had gotten worse and just 21 percent said it had gotten better.

The only category where a plurality of respondents indicated something had improved since Obama’s inauguration was America’s safety from terrorists, an area that has traditionally favored Republicans. Thirty-nine percent of all respondents said America was better off in that category while 20 percent said America was worse off with 38 percent saying things were about the same.

Democratic respondents stood apart from Republican and independent respondents on the question of whether their own financial situation had improved and whether America’s standing in the world had gotten better or worse. While a plurality of Democratic respondents — 49 percent — said their financial situation had remained about the same, slightly more Democratic respondents said their economic situation had improved rather than declined, 27 percent to 24 percent. A plurality of Democrats also indicated that America’s standing in the world had remained the same, not gotten worse, since Obama’s inauguration, with 39 percent saying it has remained static, 34 percent saying it had gotten better and 23 percent saying it had gotten worse.

A plurality of Republicans, unlike Democrats and independents, said that America’s safety from terrorists had remained these same, not improved.

If wooing independents is key to winning the 2012 election, Obama may be in trouble. In no category except for the question of whether America is safer from the terrorism threat do more independents say things have gotten better than worse since Obama’s inauguration.

Overall, however, fifty percent of respondents say they either strongly approve or somewhat approve of the president’s job performance, with 47 percent disapproving. Fifty-three percent of independents, however, disapprove of his performance, with only 43 percent registering their approval.

Asked whether they would vote for Obama against a generic Republican opponent if the election were held today, the results were almost even, with 43 percent saying they would vote for the Republican candidate and 42 percent saying they would pick Obama. However, asked whether Obama deserves to be re-elected, only 42 percent said he has earned that honor while 51 percent indicated it was time for someone else. The number is even greater in swing states, where 53 percent said it was time for someone else to be elected president and only 40 percent say Obama deserves re-election. Sixty-one percent of independents in the swing states say someone other than President Obama should be elected in 2012.

Resurgent Republic defines swing states as eight of the nine states that George W. Bush won in 2004 and Obama won in 2008 — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia – as well as four states where Republicans had major victories in 2010 — Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Compared to how he did at the polls in 2008, Obama is fairing far worse with independents, Hispanics, union households and females, according to the poll.

If there is a silver lining in the survey, it is that Obama remains more popular than Republicans in Congress. Fifty-one percent of all respondents say that they have a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of the president while 45 percent say they have a somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable view of him. Republicans in Congress register a 55 percent unfavorability rating, compared to 38 percent favorable. Even Democrats in Congress do better than congressional Republicans, with 50 percent saying they have an unfavorable view of them and 42 percent saying they have a favorable view.

The poll surveyed 1000 registered voters from October 30 to November 2 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Resurgent Republic is a 501(c)(4) organization which, according to its website, “promote[s] conservative free market principles such as lower taxes and economic growth, and support strong national defense policies.”

 Follow Jamie on Twitter