WS Poll: Obama Job Approval Dips to 39%

APRIL 28, 2011 - Fewer than four in 10 registered voters in America believe President Barack Obama is doing either an excellent or good job leading the nation, and two out of three say the U.S. is heading in the wrong direction, a new Wenzel Strategies survey shows.

Just 39% gave Obama positive job approval marks, while 59% gave him negative marks, the national telephone poll reveals. Two percent said they were unsure on the question.

Even among Democrats, Obama shows weakness on the question, as 66% of Dems give him positive marks and 32% give him negative ratings. Republicans, not surprisingly, are overwhelmingly negative – just 15% say he is doing either an excellent or good job, while 83% of GOPers gave him negative marks.

The President is not scoring many points among political independents, the survey shows. While 38% give him positive marks for his work, 59% of independents give him negative marks.

The weakness of Obama on this comes into dramatic relief when comparing those who say he is doing an “excellent” job (the most positive response available to respondents) against those who say he is doing a “poor” job (the most negative response available to respondents). Just 20% say Obama is doing an excellent job, while more than twice as many – 41% – say he is doing a poor job.

Those in the western U.S. were most generous to Obama, where 48% gave him positive marks. The worst ratings came from the South, where just 31% gave him positive marks for the job he is doing. In the Midwest, 39% gave him positive marks, as did 40% of those in the East.

On a related note, just 21% said they think the country as a whole is headed in the right direction, while 67% said the nation is off on the wrong track. Another 12% said they were unsure. Even among Democrats, just 36% said they think things are headed in the right direction, as did 7% of Republicans and 19% of political independents.

“The percentage of Americans who are downcast about the direction of the nation has grown significantly in recent weeks, which is likely related to the on-going budget debate in Washington and the spike in gasoline prices,” said Pollster Fritz Wenzel. “These are two issues that have a decidedly negative cast to them, and they are both beyond the control of the average American, so it is easy to be discouraged about both of them. Americans don’t like the feeling that they have no control over a situation. This is what was so frustrating to many as they watched Congress vote last year to pass the Obama health care reform bill. Public sentiment ran heavily against that bill, yet Congress passed it and Obama signed it into law. When Americans finally got a chance to respond to that – at the ballot box last Novemeber, they registered a strong rebuke to Washington by tossing Democrats out of power. No one knows how long the current problems in Washington and at the pump will continue, but right now Americans are very discouraged, this latest polling shows.”

Wenzel Strategies conducted a national telephone survey of 903 registered voters April 19-21, 2011. The poll carries a margin of error of +/- 3.23 percentage points.

Click here for a summary of the Obama Job Approval-Right Track data