President Barack Obama’s overall job approval rating has declined since last December, but Hispanics’ approval for the president plummeted more than any other group or major subgroup, according to a new Gallup survey.
The president’s job approval averaged 41 percent last month, down 12 percentage points from his 53 percent approval last December. During that same time period, support for Obama among Hispanics dropped 23 percentage points — from 75 percent to 52 percent in November, Gallup reported Thursday.
The polling firm noted that Hispanic approval of Obama has experienced more fluidity than most other groups, with Hispanic approval for Obama during his time in office ranging from a high of 80 percent to a low of 49 percent.
“That means their views of him are less firmly anchored than those of other groups, which may help explain why their opinions of the president soured more than any other group’s in recent months,” Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones wrote. “Despite the significant decline in their approval ratings over the past 12 months, a majority of Hispanics, 52 percent, still approve of the job Obama is doing.”
Jones added that despite the variations in Hispanic approval for the president, “it is also a troubling sign for the Democratic Party, given that Hispanics represent an increasingly important segment of the electorate.”
Other subgroups that experienced above average declines in approval for the president during that time period included low-income Americans (-18 percentage points), nonwhites (-17 percentage points), moderates and moderate Democrats (both with -16 percentage point declines), among others.
To be sure, despite the declines, a majority of nonwhites and moderate Democrats still approve of the job Obama is doing.
“The decline is apparent among all major subgroups, but tends to be higher among groups that are predisposed to support the president, perhaps because those groups had higher levels of approval at his recent peak last December and thus had more room to decline,” Jones explained.
Gallup’s results are based on telephone interviews of 14,352 adults conducted from Nov. 1-30 by the Gallup Daily tracking survey and have a margin of error of +/- 1 percentage point. The Hispanic approval rating result was based on a sample of 1,185 Hispanics and has a margin of error of +/-4 percentage points.