AP-GfK Poll: Obama more popular than Congress, page 1
Pages:
ATS Members have flagged this thread 2 times
Topic started on 10-3-2010 @ 06:56 AM by David9176
WASHINGTON – Americans have come to detest Congress ever more deeply as it nears the end of a nasty fight over health care. But more than half still back President Barack Obama, a bright spot for a Democratic Party counting on its leader to help stave off expected losses in elections this fall. The latest Associated Press-GfK poll found that fewer people approve of Congress than at any point in Obama's presidency.

Support has dropped significantly since January to a dismal 22 percent as the health care debate has roiled Capitol Hill. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are safe; half of all people say they want to fire their congressman.

As poor as the ratings are for Congress in general, people seem slightly more unhappy with Republicans than Democrats — another bit of potentially good news for Obama's party.

Just 30 percent approve of how Republicans in Congress are doing their jobs compared with 36 percent for Democrats.

Republicans still trail Democrats on the question of who should win control of Congress come November; 44 percent say Democrats, 38 percent say Republicans.

And the GOP has a slight disadvantage on two issues that voters deem among the most important — the economy and health care.


news.yahoo.com...

Yes, it's another poll. The real tidbit of info in this article however is not about Obama....it's about Republicans.

Just 30 percent approve of how Republicans in Congress are doing their jobs compared with 36 percent for Democrats.

People, luckily, still do NOT approve of Republicans as they have a lower approval rating than Democrats. I think that Senator Bunning's attempted blockage of unemployment benefits, no matter the reason, has hurt the Republican Party.

People still have not forgotten how we got into this mess in the first place thankfully.

I hope this means a clean slate in the next 2 elections but I don't think it will happen. Both parties are just reappointing replacements to take the place of incumbents in the coming elections so they can keep their seats in their parties...and then people won't actually be voting an incumbent back in...so it's still a win situation for them both.

As for Obama, he is doing what many Presidents do...trying to distance himself from Washington as being above the fray. He's not however. I'm surprised his support is this high at this point. Maybe those who support him haven't realized that he's backed out on most of his campaign promises.


[edit on 10-3-2010 by David9176]


reply posted on 10-3-2010 @ 08:14 AM by vor78
reply to post by David9176


That sounds about right. The generic approval rating for Congress usually runs about 20-30 points less than the sitting president. The aggregate approval rating of Congress right now is running at 19.3% compared to 75.7% disapproval according to RCP. For Obama its 48.9 to 45.8.

The problem is that even though Congress has such a terrible approval rating as a whole, people tend to like their own individual representatives. That's why a lot of these bums won't get thrown out this fall. That's also why Obama's support is still halfway decent, in spite of polls showing that people are very dissatisfied with the direction of the country. People often won't blame an individual person that they voted for because they don't like to admit when they're wrong.
Pages:     ^^TOP^^