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Gallup released a poll yesterday that shows Obama neck-in-neck with the leading Republican candidates. It shows him narrowly losing to Romney and tied with Perry.
What is most interesting about the poll, though, are the numbers among independents.
- Romney: 47% to Obama's 44%
- Perry: 46% to Obama's 44%
- Paul: 46% to Obama's 43%
- Bachmann: 42% to Obama's 48%
Obviously, we're a long ways from November 2012, so the usual "anything-can-happen" caveats apply, as well as the ones about how the difference in the numbers are in the margin of error. These numbers don't have predictive power at this point. But they are still an important gauge of how the Hope and Change candidate of 2008 is faring as President in the face of a GOP challenge that, at present, has a very colorful array of faces.
A few observations:
Perry is not the scary right-winger the media is trying to create. He leads narrowly among independents in a manner nearly tied with Romney. Bachmann, on the other hand, has lower support among independents. Some conservatives have taken the liberal bait and place more weight on Perry’s rhetoric than his record, but Nate Silver gets it about right in his “bubble chart” of GOP candidates that has Perry squarely straddling the establishment-grassroots camps.
Obama enjoys noticeably less support among Republicans than the GOP candidates do among Democrats. Only 6% of Republicans chose Obama over Romney and Perry, while 12% of Democrats chose Romney over Obama, 10% chose Perry, 11% Bachmann, and 12% Paul. These figures suggest the recent reports of liberals’ growing dissatisfaction with Obama are real.
No wartime boost for Obama. The poll was conducted before the news started coming out of Libya, so Obama may experience a boost this week to the degree that he and his team get out the message that the President's “leading from behind” strategy has led to victory against Gadhafi. But America’s discontents are so largely domestic these days that there’s little action overseas that will help Obama at home. His boost after the bin Laden killing was short-lived, and if that didn’t help him, not much else on the warfront will. The poll numbers reflect a public that's deeply discontented with how America's doing right now, and Obama can only move those numbers with domestic policy and action.
Obama is currently losing to a "dissatisfying" Republican field. In the wake of Paul Ryan’s announcement that he’s not running, there has been some predictable commentary about how Republicans are dissatisfied with the field. Predictable because that dissatisfaction seems real and prolonged, and such commentary always follows noteworthy declarations of non-candidacy (e.g., Daniels, Christie, now Ryan). It’s worth noting, though, that a dissatisfying field is giving Obama a run for his money and, if the election were held today, looks poised to beat him.
Well so far so good.One set of polls in August 2011 does not for certain tell us the result of an election in November 2012.Any number of economic and/or foreign policy factors may come into play over the next 14 or so months.But it does say Obama ain't as invincible as some thought or hoped.
Posted by: Matthew Reynolds | August 23, 2011 at 08:28 AM
What I find encouraging about this Gallop poll is that the electorate is willing to look at each of the four frontrunners, suggesting that they are turning toward the Republicans generically rather than a charismatic individual. That bodes well for Republican control of Congress.
Particularly gratifying is the support for the Tea Party Candidate.
Posted by: Dawn Carpenter | August 23, 2011 at 06:30 PM
Matthew and I are both posting from Britain. I've yet to see a comment on this site from anyone I did not recognise as a British poster from ConHome UK.
I would like to suggest, therefore, that you open a single thread below the main NewsLinks, as ConHome UK does, so that a dialogue can be encouraged, at least amongst us Brits, and perhaps then Yanks would be encouraged to join in, if only to declare that we had no idea what we were talking about.
If you look back at the origins of ConHome UK, you will see that it started out as a blog with a single article and a single comment thread. I'm not suggesting that you recreate that, just that it does seem as if the comments should be consolidated into a single thread until you have some Americans posting.
Posted by: Dawn Carpenter | August 23, 2011 at 06:51 PM