Democrats are worried about President Barack Obama’s falling poll numbers, US News & World Report’s Ken Walsh reports:
Democratic strategists are increasingly worried about the decline in President Obama’s job approval ratings.
“We aren’t panicking but it’s a source of concern,” a senior Democrat told me.
The latest example is Wednesday’s Washington Post/ABC News poll, which finds that 50 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance, down 5 percentage points from January.
The decline is especially apparent among independents. Two months ago, 54 percent of independents approved of his job performance; today only 44 percent approve.
It’s not good news when you lose independents. AND:
A new McClatchy-Marist poll is even worse for Obama. Only 45 percent say he is doing a good job and 48 percent don’t approve of his job performance.
One concern among Democrats is that a politically weakened Obama will pull down his party’s candidates in the midterm elections of 2014.
And Obama is slipping in his credibility on the economy. In December, Obama held an 18-point advantage over congressional Republicans on the question of who could be trusted more to deal with the economy. Today, 44 percent say they trust Obama and 40 percent say they trust the GOP, a much narrower margin.
He notes that Congress’ poll numbers are worse. But concern remains.
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.