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Obama's Approval Rating Drops on Economy Concerns
Kristin Jensen Kristin Jensen – Thu Aug 6, 7:10 am ET
Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s approval rating is falling on concern unemployment is rising and the budget deficit will grow, a Quinnipiac University poll shows.
Exactly half of the registered voters surveyed from July 27 to Aug. 3 by Quinnipiac said they approve of the job Obama is doing, compared with 42 percent who disapprove. That’s down from 57 percent approval and 33 percent disapproval in a poll taken in late June, according to results released today.
Americans are upset about rising unemployment and worried that health-care plans making their way through Congress will add to the U.S. budget deficit, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Hamden, Connecticut-based polling institute. The combination has helped drive down the president’s ratings.
A “willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt is, among some voters, evaporating,” Brown told reporters in Washington yesterday.
The poll found that voters disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy by 49 percent to 45 percent. On his effort to overhaul of the health-care system, 52 percent disapprove of his handling of the issue while 39 percent approve.
Only foreign policy offered a bright spot: 52 percent of poll respondents approved of his job on this front, compared with 38 percent who disapproved.
Quinnipiac took the poll in the middle of a controversy over Obama’s remarks about the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates, who is black, was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after a confrontation at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a white police officer.
Obama, asked about the incident during a July 22 news conference, said police “acted stupidly” in making the arrest. In the poll, voters by 49 percent to 33 percent said Obama acted “stupidly” when he waded into the matter. Even so, 55 percent said they approved of the way Obama is handling race relations.
The poll surveyed 2,409 registered voters nationwide and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at [email protected]
Obama's Approval Rating Drops on Economy Concerns
Kristin Jensen Kristin Jensen – Thu Aug 6, 7:10 am ET
Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s approval rating is falling on concern unemployment is rising and the budget deficit will grow, a Quinnipiac University poll shows.
Exactly half of the registered voters surveyed from July 27 to Aug. 3 by Quinnipiac said they approve of the job Obama is doing, compared with 42 percent who disapprove. That’s down from 57 percent approval and 33 percent disapproval in a poll taken in late June, according to results released today.
Americans are upset about rising unemployment and worried that health-care plans making their way through Congress will add to the U.S. budget deficit, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Hamden, Connecticut-based polling institute. The combination has helped drive down the president’s ratings.
A “willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt is, among some voters, evaporating,” Brown told reporters in Washington yesterday.
The poll found that voters disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy by 49 percent to 45 percent. On his effort to overhaul of the health-care system, 52 percent disapprove of his handling of the issue while 39 percent approve.
Only foreign policy offered a bright spot: 52 percent of poll respondents approved of his job on this front, compared with 38 percent who disapproved.
Quinnipiac took the poll in the middle of a controversy over Obama’s remarks about the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates, who is black, was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after a confrontation at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a white police officer.
Obama, asked about the incident during a July 22 news conference, said police “acted stupidly” in making the arrest. In the poll, voters by 49 percent to 33 percent said Obama acted “stupidly” when he waded into the matter. Even so, 55 percent said they approved of the way Obama is handling race relations.
The poll surveyed 2,409 registered voters nationwide and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at [email protected]
