Coming at a time when some polls show President Barack Obama’s poll numbers taking a big dip, he has some good news: his numbers are up among young people, The Hill reports:
President Obama’s job-approval rating among young people has gone up, even as his overall approval rating has hit an all-time low in certain surveys.
A new poll of 18- to 29-year-olds by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics (IOP) found 55 percent of so-called Millennials approve of Obama’s presidency — a six-point increase over a similar IOP survey in October. His approval rating is even higher among those attending a four-year college, where 60 percent back Obama. That was a nine-point increase from the last survey.A recent Quinnipiac University survey found Obama’s approval rating at just 42 percent, but that survey was of registered voters. Harvard’s poll was conducted in online surveys of 3,018 18- to 29-year-old U.S. citizens, and has a margin of error of 2.4 percent. It was in the field from Feb. 11 through March 2.
Now the question becomes whether the Democrats will be able to get young voters to the polls in 2012 with sufficient enthusiasm so that these numbers make a difference. But if you add the young votes, the African-American vote, the Hispanic vote and — most likely now more than in recent years — voters from union households or people who have relatives in union households, then you can see the emergence of a potentially effective coalition for the Dems.
The findings are good news for Obama, who was propelled into the White House in 2008 with the votes and volunteer hours of millions of young people. Their renewed enthusiasm could help boost his reelection bid.
CNN’s Ruben Navarette, Jr. notes the GOP’s problem with Hispanics:
The Republican Party seized an opportunity to become the mouthpiece for the cultural anxiety that many Americans feel about changing demographics and the reality that the United States is becoming a Hispanic country.
But GOP leaders didn’t think about the cost. Republicans insist they are “anti-illegal immigration” but, in their rhetoric and legislative solutions, they come across as “anti-immigrant” and “anti-Hispanic.” And so, not surprisingly, most Hispanics wouldn’t vote Republican even if it were the last party on Earth.
This is NOT good news for the GOP — given numbers that indicate Hispanics are growing in population and potentially HUGE political clout in key states.
Navarette suggests Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio could help in 2012 if he’s the Republican Veep candidate. And that will be a delicate operation:
Given his Spanish surname, Rubio has to constantly reassure the conservative white voters of the GOP base that he is tough on illegal immigration. And yet, if he’s too tough, he’ll lose Latino support to the point where he becomes just another caricature of a turncoat, an Uncle So-and-So who can’t deliver his own community. Which, ironically, is one of the major reasons he’d be on a national ticket in the first place.
Marco Rubio is the Republican Party’s Superman. And, the immigration issue, if not handled correctly, is his kryptonite.
And what is Obama doing? Can you guess?
President Barack Obama, aware of news that the U.S. Hispanic population has hit 50 million, is turning his attention on issues key to Hispanics, including education.
Early this week, Obama held a town hall meeting at a D.C. high school, roughly three miles from the White House, where two-thirds of the students are Hispanic. The town hall, broadcast by the Spanish-language TV network Univision, overlapped with the president’s live address to the nation on Libya, but reportedly drew 2.7 million viewers.
Coalitions win elections. Are we seeing a Democratic one falling into shape — not so much because of how terrific the Democrats are, but because Republicans are now chasing groups away as Tea Party movement and anti-labor sentiment completely erases the last vestiges of “compassionate conservatism?”
And if there’s a government shut down, among these groups, which party is most likely to be seen to blame — confirming what seems to be a growing perception that they’re treated a bit better by Democrats?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.