Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Barack Obama's Popularity Rises Above the Best of a Bad Lot

A recent NBC/WSJ poll taken before this week's debate has some sobering news for Republicans.

First, only 45% of prospective Republican primary voters say they are satisfied with the Republican Party's 2012 presidential candidates. The good news for Mitt Romney is that they rank him highest:

CandidatePercent
Mitt Romney30
Sarah Palin14
Herman Cain12
Rick Perry8
Ron Paul7
Newt Gingrich6
Tim Pawlenty4
Rick Santorum4
Michele Bachmann3
Jon Huntsman1
Other1
None2
Not sure8

The bad news for Republicans is that Barack Obama continues to enjoy a relatively positive imgage, compared to all of them:

Person or GroupPositiveNegativePos-Neg
Barack Obama493712
Chris Christie23149
Mitt Romney27261
The Democratic Party3839-1
Paul Ryan1718-1
Tim Pawlenty1415-1
Jon Huntsman79-2
Rick Perry1215-3
The Tea Party Movement2841-13
The Republican Party3044-14
Sarah Palin2454-30
Newt Gingrich1648-32

Those Republicans who'd like to see New Jersey Governor Chris Christie jump into the Presidential race will be heartened but ought to consider that many voters outside of New Jersey (44%) still don't know him. There are a couple of notable Repuiblican candidates not on that list, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain.

At the root of it is that while Barack Obama's job approval ratings are just middling, approval ratings for Congress are downright abysmal. Congress continues to drag the Republican Party down:

JobApproveDisapproveNot sure
Barack Obama as President49465
Barack Obama handling the economy41545
Barack Obama handling foreign policy54446
Barack Obama handling the war in Afghanistan54397
Congress18748

How will that change? Congress is getting blamed with only 29% believing the country is headed in the right direction and 62% believing we are off on the wrong track.

No comments: