Trouble Ahead for Obama?

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Man, the Democrats just cannot seem to find any good news these days.  Healthcare reform is stalled, the unemployment picture still isn’t pretty, they have lost their supermajority in the Senate with the arrival of Scott Brown, oh, and Congress has lost about half a month’s work due to the “snowpocalypse” that has descended Washington.  Today, a new poll came out that only adds to their troubles; it shows that President Obama is, for all intents and purposes, tied with a generic Republican candidate for President in 2012.  Granted, we are only just over a year into Mr. Obama’s Presidency, but these numbers are huge.  Now, not only do the Democrats have to worry about this year’s midterm elections, but they also face the very real risk of losing the White House in two years as well.    While technically President Obama has a 2-point edge over an unnamed Republican, statistically the two are tied, as the poll cites a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points; in essence, the actual numbers could be off by as much as 4% if the result of the poll of roughly 1,000 voters were to be scaled up to the entire country.  Looking deeper at the results, the Democrats have plenty more reasons to worry.

Chief among them is the breakdown of party identification in the poll; Democrats and Republicans heavily favor their candidate, as is expected, therefore, the nation’s independent voters are up for grabs.  However, Politico reports that in the poll, many of these independents are leaning toward the right, which is strikingly similar to the political climate that ousted the Democratic governors in New Jersey and Virginia, not to mention led to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts.  Indeed, in recent years, both parties have seen a decline in voter identification.  Independents are now the key to most races, and candidates of all stripes actively court them.  By no means is the shift in this group’s opinion decisive; nearly a quarter of independents have yet to make up their minds, and Republicans are only favored 45%-31%.  However, this is still a very significant gap, and the President will have to work hard over the next year or so to attract the lion’s share of these voters.

Another issue is the fact that this poll was a generic match between President Obama and a random Republican. While there are no hard numbers out yet, tossing a name into the mix on the Republican side will almost certainly affect the result.  For instance, while Sarah Palin is a polarizing figure, the Tea Party movement that considers her a hero helped get Scott Brown elected.  Further, if a more moderate Republican, such as Scott Brown himself (highly unlikely for someone who hasn’t even finished his first term in the Senate, but then again, there is Barack Obama…), or Mitt Romney, among others, were to run, many more of the independents and possibly some conservative and disaffected Democrats might go for the GOP.  The healthcare debate has sharpened the partisan divides between and within the parties, so who really knows who will still be in their seat when the music stops?

There still is some hope though.  The poll I have been talking about up to this point was done before President Obama had had his question-and-answer session with Congressional Republicans.  In fact, the New York Times did a more recent poll and it has indeed registered a change for Democrats since then.  The news still is not good, but it appears to be slightly better than in the Gallup poll. According to the poll, 51% of voters surveyed have a negative view of Democrats, and 57% have a negative view of Republicans.  Thus, the edge seems to go slightly more toward the President’s party, but Congress should be very afraid; the poll indicated that fewer than 10% of the voters believe Congress should be reelected.  In addition, while President Obama’s approval rating is still under 50%, many of his initiatives are still highly popular.  The latest poll numbers are something that every Democrat and every Republican should have on his or her mind, but at this moment, President Obama has a chance to turn things around and shore up his numbers.  If done right, nobody will be talking about this next year.

The Trouble Ahead for Obama? by The New Age of Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Tags: Barack Obama, Democratic, GOP, Mitt Romney, Politics, Poll, President Obama, Republican, Sarah Palin, Scott Brown, United States Congress