bobbyw24
04-29-2010, 10:44 AM
Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.
As the folks in the White House begin looking toward President Barack Obama’s presumed re-election campaign in 2012, there is one statistic that might worry them more than any other: Little more than a third of white voters currently think the president is doing a good job.
That data point is hidden in the crosstabs of the myriad polls that show a very polarized nation that gives the president a middling job approval rating overall.
Mr. Obama’s job approval rating remains in the mid-to-high-40s overall only because he gets a thumbs up from more than 90% of blacks and gets majority support from Hispanics.
A mid-40s job approval isn’t a terrible place for a politician to be. President George W. Bush won re-election in 2004 with those kinds of numbers.
And, of course, asking voters if they approve of Mr. Obama’s job performance is different than asking if they would vote for him. Any polls that test Mr. Obama against specific Republicans are too early to be meaningful.
However, a president’s job approval is a good reading on the public’s attitude.
A Potentially Big Problem
Mr. Obama’s weakness among whites, who comprise almost three quarters of the electorate even as the nation’s population becomes more racially diverse, is a potentially sizable political problem for the nation’s first African-American president.
The White House clearly recognizes that. Mr. Obama, trying to shore up support for Democratic candidates this year, is reaching out to both minorities and some selected groups of white voters, especially young people. In a video pitch released Monday, he called on Democratic activists to “reconnect” to “the young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women, who powered our victory in 2008, [to] stand together once again.” And on Tuesday, he began a two-day trip to rural communities in the nation’s heartland.
The easy explanation for Mr. Obama’s declining approval among whites, and one some will certainly adopt, is that these numbers reflect racism on the part of white voters. That may be the case for some, but White House political strategists would be sticking their heads in the sand to see it that way.
In his 2008 election, Mr. Obama won 43% of the white vote — as well as any Democratic presidential candidate in almost a half-century, and better than most. It would strain logic to argue that whites who backed him in the election are racists for deserting him now.
Mr. Obama’s weakness among whites tracks other Democratic presidents and wannabes, all of whom were white. No Democratic presidential nominee has won a majority of the white vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 — even Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, who won the White House anyway.
Factoring in the Economy . . .
http://blogs.wsj.com/capitaljournal/2010/04/28/obama%E2%80%99s-poll-problem-white-backers-in-%E2%80%9908-are-deserting-him/
As the folks in the White House begin looking toward President Barack Obama’s presumed re-election campaign in 2012, there is one statistic that might worry them more than any other: Little more than a third of white voters currently think the president is doing a good job.
That data point is hidden in the crosstabs of the myriad polls that show a very polarized nation that gives the president a middling job approval rating overall.
Mr. Obama’s job approval rating remains in the mid-to-high-40s overall only because he gets a thumbs up from more than 90% of blacks and gets majority support from Hispanics.
A mid-40s job approval isn’t a terrible place for a politician to be. President George W. Bush won re-election in 2004 with those kinds of numbers.
And, of course, asking voters if they approve of Mr. Obama’s job performance is different than asking if they would vote for him. Any polls that test Mr. Obama against specific Republicans are too early to be meaningful.
However, a president’s job approval is a good reading on the public’s attitude.
A Potentially Big Problem
Mr. Obama’s weakness among whites, who comprise almost three quarters of the electorate even as the nation’s population becomes more racially diverse, is a potentially sizable political problem for the nation’s first African-American president.
The White House clearly recognizes that. Mr. Obama, trying to shore up support for Democratic candidates this year, is reaching out to both minorities and some selected groups of white voters, especially young people. In a video pitch released Monday, he called on Democratic activists to “reconnect” to “the young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women, who powered our victory in 2008, [to] stand together once again.” And on Tuesday, he began a two-day trip to rural communities in the nation’s heartland.
The easy explanation for Mr. Obama’s declining approval among whites, and one some will certainly adopt, is that these numbers reflect racism on the part of white voters. That may be the case for some, but White House political strategists would be sticking their heads in the sand to see it that way.
In his 2008 election, Mr. Obama won 43% of the white vote — as well as any Democratic presidential candidate in almost a half-century, and better than most. It would strain logic to argue that whites who backed him in the election are racists for deserting him now.
Mr. Obama’s weakness among whites tracks other Democratic presidents and wannabes, all of whom were white. No Democratic presidential nominee has won a majority of the white vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 — even Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, who won the White House anyway.
Factoring in the Economy . . .
http://blogs.wsj.com/capitaljournal/2010/04/28/obama%E2%80%99s-poll-problem-white-backers-in-%E2%80%9908-are-deserting-him/