Gallup mentions the most obvious point – the President has slipped from his historical approval rating among African-Americans (usually around 92%) all the way down to 85%* – but it kind of obscures a detail on the graph with regard to Hispanic voters. They acknowledge that the President is currently at a low with 54% of those voters, but Gallup does not point out that Obama’s approval rating dropped by double digits with those voters over a year ago and hasn’t really come back since. For that matter, the real story from that graph is that the President has a 39% approval rating among whites; his approval rating among those voters at the beginning of his term was somewhere just above 60%.
Andrew Malcolm is right to couch all of this in terms of it merely being worrisome for the President; after all, it’s early days yet. But he’s also right that Obama should be worrying about this, given that hyper-enthusiasm is precisely what his campaign needs if they seriously plan to raise a billion dollars for the 2012 campaign. In fact, i think that the billion-dollar number is going to end up being a bit of an albatross for the President: it will require a constant, probably grueling, emphasis on fundraising in order to work, and it has already forced the President to formally re-enter the electoral arena months early. In other words, the President may have been better off if he had decided not to try to beat his high score.
One last detail: the Gallup poll shows Obama’s approval among 18-29 year old voters to be 54%. In April of 2009 that number was 74%. This is not incompatible with the categories mentioned earlier (96% for African-Americans; 85% for Hispanics; 57% for whites), but it still represents a significant erosion of support among a key demographic for the President. One that is currently expected to be fueling most of the enthusiasm for Obama’s 2012 campaign, in fact; so it seems unusual that Gallup didn’t mention it at all…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*Is that meaningful? Yes and no: high African-American turnout was a key factor in flipping several Red states in 2008, but there are plenty of viable Democratic re-election strategies that don’t rely on Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida in order to work. On the other hand, the Midwest isn’t looking very friendly to Obama these days, either.
Moe Lane
Dan Spencer
Dan McLaughlin
Jeff Emanuel
Good, but he needs to slip more
renny (Diary) Thursday, April 7th at 9:09AM EDT (link)A problem for Reps. is that McCain took more states and took more counties, but he didn’t take the cities, and we need inroads there, including vetting voting rolls so that the dead do not so commonly rise again in Dem. districts.
renny's right
frankieb (Diary) Thursday, April 7th at 9:25AM EDT (link)Voter fraud is rampant in the cities. Here in MO, McCaskill needed it in both KC and St. Louis to win her Senate seat. Voter ID is a must in every state. No excuses for it not being implemented, especially with all the voting technology available today.
Books … the most exotic, least expensive vacation: www.DelphiBooks.us
www.DaughterOfTheGreatDepression.blogspot.com
Claire McCaskill goes in so many directions, it’s amazing she hasn’t drawn and quartered herself. www.TruthAboutClaire.com
If Obama loses the white middle minority turnout is not going to matter
unclefred (Diary) Thursday, April 7th at 10:14AM EDT (link)Don’t get me wrong. A turned of youth and minority vote will seriously hurt Obama and the democrat ticket in 2012. If Obama’s numbers among whites, especially white women, continue to erode, the Dems won’t be able to make it up with minority turnout.
Even without more disruption in the middle east, current energy policies almost guarantee that a gallon of gas will be well north of $4 at the pump. Food prices will continue to soar. Unemployment will stay high. Wages will stay flat and people will feel the pinch.
I don’t say this with any relish. I would prefer that things were better and a real private sector recovery were underway. It’s not and is unlikely to be. Our economic problems are just a reflection of the consequences of the massive government intervention into our lives and markets.
With all the normal caveats about it being a long time to Nov 2012, anything can happen, etc, if the slide continues Obama is going to lose big and take down a number of incumbent Dem Senators.
Voter Id is critical. We need to press our new republican state legislatures to put voter id in place and back it up with laws that have teeth. We on the right have to work as hard as possible. We’ll need to unite behind the eventual Republican nominee. Today this election is ours to lose. Let not get confident, lets all just get to work.
we need to focus on
averagevoterdotcom Thursday, April 7th at 10:17AM EDT (link)our principles until 2012 and the final numbers will shake out fine.
It looks ...
cam1 Thursday, April 7th at 10:45AM EDT (link)like he will continue to fall with a dramatic government shutdown. If this happens, 0′bama will continue to appear, once again, as one who is not quite up to the challenge.
Sure are a lot of racist black people.
Tbone (Diary) Thursday, April 7th at 10:57AM EDT (link)Unless, of course, they can see attributes in Obama rather than on Obama that whites and Hispanics can’t see.
I wonder how he is doing with the anti-war, anti-Gitmo crowd?
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
If you dig a little deeper
scarlos (Diary) Thursday, April 7th at 11:49AM EDT (link)He’s down with Asians, and other Non-white, non-Black, Non-Hispanics as well. His total for last week with the general category of “Non-whites” is 57%, down from the almost 80% he got in 2008.
Though this is a more immediate drop that appeared only last week, so its not as statistically significant. If it keeps up however . . .
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Approval-Center.aspx
Socialism is Oligarchy in disguise
We'll know it is over. . .
msctex (Diary) Thursday, April 7th at 12:54PM EDT (link). . .when they appear to suddenly realize he was never actually Black to begin with. No way they will not try to resurrect that card for future use. It’s a supposed Ace in a dwindling deck.