The latest Washington Post/ABC poll is an snakes’ nest of bad news for President Barack Obama — and a warning from Americans to the GOP about the 2016 election.
Fifty-five percent of Americans see Obama as a presidential failure, while just 42 percent see him as a success only eight weeks before a critical November election.
Fifty-five percent believe he’s a divider, not a uniter, and 51 percent disapprove of his current performance, according to the poll, published Sept. 9. Only 42 percent approve of his current performance.
His immigration policies get 59 percent disapproval and 31 percent approval, while his economic policies are disapproved by 54 percent and approved by 42 percent. His foreign policies and Obamacare are rejected by 56 percent.
But a critical mass of registered voters also show they think the GOP is not concerned about them.
“Which political party… do you think is more concerned with the needs of people like you?” the pollsters asked.
Only 38 percent said the GOP is concerned with people like them, two years before the next presidential election.
And 46 percent of registered voters said the Democrats are concerned about their needs.
The results were the same for a similar question: “Which political party… do you think better represents your own personal values?” Forty-five percent of all adults, and 45 percent of registered voters, picked the Democratic Party.
That’s the concern and trust gap that swallowed establishment candidate Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012, even before he talked to his high-dollar donors about the 47 percent voters who are supposedly “takers.”
Partly because of that concern gap, millions of GOP-gettable voters didn’t turn out, and millions of Democratic faithful did, amid high unemployment, declining wages, climbing student debt and slow growth.
And the concern gap is still there in September 2014, waiting for the GOP candidate who competes in 2016 against the likely Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her much-liked husband, Bill Clinton.