Politics

Obama’s ratings slide on economy, immigration

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
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President Barack Obama has flown off to Africa, leaving behind a bitter fight over the nation’s immigration policy, and an increasingly unhappy electorate, according to a new Fox News poll.

The Fox poll of 1,012 registered voters from June 22-24 shows that ratings for his economic, immigration and deficit policies have fallen into the 30s, even though support from a core of progressive and African-American voters have kept his overall approval rating at 43 percent.

His disapproval rate is 51 percent, said Fox.

That’s a little worse than other polls. Gallup, for example found he has a 45-percent approval rating, and a 47-percent disapproval rating. Others polls show him hovering around 47-percent approval.

In the Fox poll, only 38 percent approve of the president’s economic policies, 39 percent approve of his immigration policy, and 32 percent approve of his policy towards the federal deficit, says the Fox poll, announced June 26.

He’s doing better on terrorism, where he scores at 52 percent. But his handling of foreign policy and health care get him ratings of only 41 percent.

Obama’s low score on immigration, which is one of his highest political priorities for 2013, may help explain why he has kept a low profile as the Democratic-run Senate rushes through a far-reaching rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws.

That Obama-backed rewrite is expected to add 46 million immigrants — including at least 11 million illegal immigrants — to the country over the next 20 years, and to double the annual inflow of blue-collar and professional-class guest-workers to more than 1 million workers per year.

It also nudges down average income, education and employment prospects, and tilts more of the nation’s income away from wage-earner for at least 20 years, according to a June 16 report by the Congressional Budget Office.

Roughly 20 million Americans are still unemployed or underemployed, despite the formal end to the 2008 crash in 2010.

Fifty-three percent disapprove of his immigration policy, says the Fox poll.

The Fox news poll showed that only 13 percent of Republicans, 32 percent of independents, 36 percent of men and 41 percent of women favor his immigration policy.

The policy gets 43 percent support from people with college degrees and 36 percent form people without a college degree.

But he has more support from his Democratic base. The immigration policy is supported by 69 percent of liberals, 68 percent of blacks, 65 percent of liberals and 49 percent of people aged below 35.

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