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How soft is Obama’s support?

March 20, 2012 by B. Daniel Blatt

In a thoughtful post this morning Jim Geraghty offered his theory . . .

. . . that most apolitical voters desperately want to avoid concluding that the first African-American President of the United States is a failure, on par with a second term for Jimmy Carter. As a result, they will give Obama until the very last minute to demonstrate an ability to get the job done, to demonstrate that he can generate tangible improvements in their lives. But, if around October 2012, people don’t see tangible improvements in their lives, well . . . the bottom may fall out of his numbers. He’ll still have his loyal base, but the vast majority of independents will decide he just can’t get the job done.

An interesting notion; the entire post merits your attention.  As I was reading it earlier today, I recalled a detail Ed Morrissey’s highlighted in his post last Friday on the Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll:

Even with a skewed sample with an eight-point advantage for Democrats, only 27% of men and 32% of women say they will definitely vote for Obama in 2012, and only 31% overall.  That’s actually lower than the percentage of women in the sample who are Democrats (37%) and men as well (32%).

. . . .

In comparison, 39% in this skewed sample say they will vote against Obama in 2012, thirteen points higher than the GOP representation in the sample.   The same is true in the gender breakdowns, with 38% of men decided against Obama and 36% of women, both higher than those who have decided to vote for Obama, and much higher than Republican representation in the gender demo (27% of men, 26% of women).

This corresponds with other polls I’ve seen showing that more people are definitely intending on voting against the president than for him.  And I wonder if part of his campaign strategy is to hike not the numbers of those definitely intending on voting for him, but on those firmly resolved to vote against the Republican nominee, whoever he is.

Filed Under: 2012 Presidential Election

Comments

  1. sonicfrog says

    March 20, 2012 at 7:39 pm - March 20, 2012

    I think it’s too much to read anything into his numbers at the moment. Lets face it, to the public, even though they are wrong, he’s not running yet and most won’t pay attention to him until the Republicans have their candidate. I remember that before John Kerry was chosen, GW polling numbers were pretty lackluster. He also has the deteriorating situation in Iraq around his neck. There were very few honest pundits who were upbeat about his reelection chances before his eventual opponent was chosen in July of 2004.

  2. Jeremayakovka says

    March 20, 2012 at 8:45 pm - March 20, 2012

    One man’s failure is another man’s post-colonial socialist.

  3. ILoveCapitalism says

    March 20, 2012 at 9:38 pm - March 20, 2012

    Bush won in 2004, because his approval numbers stayed at 45-50% or a little above, through the election year. (Obviously, the election itself gave him 51% approval… my point is that the result was part of his baseline trend. going in.) http://users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggles/2004.htm

    Obama will have a hard time, if he can’t maintain his numbers in a like range as the economy crashes again as the year progresses. But Geraghty has a good point anyway:

    people hate admitting they made a mistake… a lot of Obama voters must be persuaded that they made the wrong choice in 2008, *and that it isn’t their fault*.

  4. V the K says

    March 21, 2012 at 5:55 am - March 21, 2012

    The dead cat bounce of the economy will help Obama. But his real strategy will be to destroy Mitt Romney with a media-enabled scorched Earth campaign like Harry Reid unleashed on Sharron Angle.

  5. Heliotrope says

    March 21, 2012 at 9:34 am - March 21, 2012

    I am trying to recall if Romney has shown himself to be thin-skinned. Obama can not abide criticism and is fairly easy to manipulate into one of his superiority dances and thunderstorm of rebuke complete with hailstones of blame and rebuke.

    So, if Romeny combines a cool demeanor and sharp criticism of Obama and it is coupled with Obama’s scorched earth attacks on Romney and his tantrums of retort and cry-baby insistence on being loved …… I think the people will get very tired of the Obama campaign.

    A loser looking for love and demanding it as his right is not much of a motivator.

  6. David in N.O. says

    March 21, 2012 at 4:37 pm - March 21, 2012

    I can’t recall a time that Romney has been thin skinned, but at times it seems bewildering to him that there are people who don’t like him.

    In the parlance of New Orleans, “I like him, me.” I believe he is a thoroughly honorable man, an honest man and a gentleman. He may not be as bold as say, Jeb Bush, but Jeb’s not running.

    So, if Romeny combines a cool demeanor and sharp criticism of Obama and it is coupled with Obama’s scorched earth attacks on Romney and his tantrums of retort and cry-baby insistence on being loved …… I think the people will get very tired of the Obama campaign./

    Agreed.

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