Republicans Unable to Take Advantage of Sinking Obama Favorability
A new survey by The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that the GOP has been unsuccessful to date in capitalizing on President Obama’s declining popularity. The nationwide poll of 2,010 adults was conducted between August 11-17, 2009
While the headline of the release is “More See White House and GOP Leaders at Odds”, the poll shows that Obama and the Democratic Party’s drop in favorability hasn’t resulted in favorability improvements for Republicans. The growing perception is that Washington is failing to deal with critical issues, and
While more people continue to blame Republican leaders than blame Obama, the percentage saying the president is at fault (17%) is higher now than in June (12%) and much higher than in February (7%)
According to Pew the percentage of Americans who believe that Republican leaders are most to blame has remained between 27% and 29% through the February to August period.
This is the most telling graphic, however:
Despite the precipitous fall in Democratic Party popularity, GOP popularity has flat-lined at 40%. Note the September 2008 post-convention jump: was it due to the fresh voice of Sarah Palin? What can be done to recreate that lost momentum?
(Graph Source: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press)
[...] warned before, low presidential polling numbers create security and political risks. Besides, Republicans haven’t been able to take widespread advantage of this situation, although if the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial election is any indication this may be changing. [...]