A slew of new polls contain mostly bad news for President Barack Obama, Congress and Democrats in Congress. Many voters are saying “a pox on all of your houses” as Obama’s numbers sink to within a hair of former President George Bush’s bad numbers, Congress has dropped down so far down a “SOUTH POLE” sign can be seen — and Democrats have lost the advantage that they had on the generic Congressional ballot in the wake of last month’s Republican-House-engineered government shutdown.
This represents a major shift in the political scene, underscoring its volatility. It’s within this context that The Hill reports that “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday will convene a special meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus and senior White Officials to discuss the troubled rollout of ObamaCare.” The polls:
Gallup finds some erosion in Obama’s standing, but not entirely:
After six messy weeks — defined chiefly by the partial government shutdown and troubled rollout of the federal government’s healthcare exchange website — President Barack Obama’s reputation with the American public has faltered in some ways, but not in others. Most notably, for the first time in his presidency, fewer than half of Americans, 47%, say Obama is a “strong and decisive leader,” down six percentage points since September.
Similarly, the share of Americans who view Obama as “honest and trustworthy” has dipped five points. Exactly half of Americans still consider Obama honest and trustworthy, but this is down from 55% in September and 60% in mid-2012 as Obama was heading toward re-election.
Americans’ confidence in their chief executive to manage the government has also waned five points since September, to 42%. However, this level is similar to 44% in June and 45% in June 2012.
On the positive side for Obama, more than half of Americans — 54% — continue to believe he appreciates the problems Americans face in their daily lives, down only two points since September. And while far fewer than half — 38% — say he has a clear plan for solving the country’s problems, this is typical for Obama, as well as for most recent presidents.
In contrast to Americans’ ratings of Obama’s personal characteristics, their ratings of the job he is doing in handling the economy, foreign affairs, and healthcare policy are each down compared with early September, but not significantly.
Both Congress and President Obama recorded their lowest approval ratings to date in two major public opinion surveys out Tuesday.
Congress’ approval rating has fallen to nine percent in a new Gallup poll, the lowest it has been in the public opinion research firm’s 39 years of asking the question. The previous low was 10 percent, reached twice in 2012.
The findings are similar to a CBS News poll taken just after the 16-day government shutdown in October, which found that 85 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Congress did its job, and just nine percent approve. The disapproval rating was the highest since CBS began asking the question in 1977, and they had only once before recorded a nine percent approval rating, two years earlier.
AND:
A new Quinnipiac University poll found that American voters disapprove of Mr. Obama by a margin of 54 percent to 39 percent, which is the lowest approval rating he has had since becoming president. The lowest approval rating before today was a 55 percent to 39 percent 41 percent approval rating in October 2011. Even women – a group Mr. Obama won by 12 percentage points in the 2012 election — now disapprove of his performance, 51 percent to 40 percent.
“Like all new presidents, President Barack Obama had a honeymoon with American voters, with approval ratings in the high 50s. As the marriage wore on, he kept his job approval scores in the respectable, though not overwhelming, 40s. Today, for the first time it appears that 40 percent floor is cracking,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Perhaps most troubling for the president is Quinnipiac’s finding that his honesty and trustworthiness numbers are upside down. Fifty-two percent to 44 percent say the president is not honest and trustworthy. Previously, his lowest mark on honesty was 49 percent (with 47 percent saying he was not honest) in May.
The problem for Obama is that this will mean a decrease in his existing clout. PLUS:
The Affordable Care Act does not fare particularly well either. Voters oppose the law by a margin of 55 percent to 39 percent, and just 19 percent of Americans predict that the quality of care they and their families receive will improve in the next year because of Obamacare. Forty-three percent predicted their care would get worse, and 33 percent said the law would have no effect.
Voters are also evenly split on the question of whether Mr. Obama “knowingly deceived” the public when he promised people could keep their existing health care coverage if they liked it.Forty-six percent said he did; 47 percent said he did not. There is broad support of 73 percent for extending the March 31, 2014 deadline to sign up for insurance without facing a penalty.
The only policy issue on which he got more positive than negative ratings was on his handling of terrorism
The Week’s Jon Turbish on Obama’s credibility problem:
For the first time in his presidency, a majority of voters do not think Obama is “honest and trustworthy” according to a Quinnipiac poll released late Tuesday. In the survey, 52 percent of respondents said Obama was not honest, while only 44 percent said he was, a striking change from January 2011, when nearly two thirds of voters trusted the president.
Also worrisome for Obama, that sentiment extended across different demographics. Six in ten independents said they no longer trusted the president, while majorities in every age bracket — including the 18-to-29-year-olds who have long been Obama’s most ardent supporters — said the president wasn’t trustworthy.
Obama’s approval rating, meanwhile, slipped to an all-time low of 39 percent.
It’s a stunning reversal for a president who, even when voters didn’t like how he was running the White House, still came off as an honest steward. During the government shutdown, for instance, polls found that voters were far more willing to trust Obama than his GOP rivals. And in October, voters believed the president was honest by a 54-41 split, per Quinnipiac, numbers that Mitt Romney would have killed for.
Yet ObamaCare’s terrible rollout has greatly eroded that invaluable asset, possibly taking with it some of the president’s leverage to negotiate with Congress in looming battles on immigration and the budget.
By all accounts, the debut of ObamaCare’s online exchange marketplace, a central piece of the overall health-care law, was a disaster. As a result, six in 10 voters now say they don’t approve of how Obama has handled health care, according to Quinnipiac.
The bigger blow to Obama’s credibility, though, came when insurance companies began dropping coverage for thousands of Americans because their existing health-insurance plans did not meet ObamaCare’s more rigorous standards. Obama famously (and repeatedly) vowed that people who liked their insurance plans could keep them.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have lost their advantage on the generic Congressional ballot vote:
A new Quinnipiac poll finds voters evenly divided on whether they would vote for a Democrat or a Republican in their Congressional district, 39% to 39%.
Democrats held a 9 point edge in early October.
Voters still disapprove of Republicans in Congress, 73% to 20%, more than they disapprove of Democrats, 62% to 30%.
CNN’s Jake Trapper today said they’ve had trouble finding Democrats who could defend Obamacare’s sign up numbers:
Today’s Obamacare numbers have been disappointing, to say the least, with only about 106,000 people signing up through the state and federal health care exchanged. On CNN’s The Lead Wednesday, Jake Tapper admitted it was really hard to find Democrats willing to come on and defend the health care law’s dismal sign-up numbers.
CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger said the numbers are “embarrassing for the administration,” considering the benchmark the CBO set for how many would need to enroll by March for the program to be successful. Newt Gingrich dismissed the idea this is in any way comparable to the bumpy rollout of health care in Massachusetts, saying Obamacare’s a “massively bigger problem.”
In other words: Obama’s plate is full.
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.