Posted on 01/24/2011 8:51:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats learned at least one big lesson in the November elections: What the independent voter gives, the independent voter can also take away.
But now, the same temperamental bloc that threw House Democrats out of power appear to be in a giving mood again - at least as far as Obama is concerned.
That unpredictable, cranky group of voters who helped carry the president into office two years ago before turning against him in dramatic fashion, may be turning back in Obama’s direction even more quickly.
A series of national polls released over the last week shows Obama’s approval rating on the upswing among voters who don’t affiliate with either political party.
In two polls, Obama’s standing with independents jumped by double digits. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed him clocking 46 percent approval among independents - an 11-point increase since December.
A CNN/Opinion Research survey was even more sanguine, showing a 15-point leap for Obama, to 56 percent approval.
A third poll, conducted for CBS and the New York Times, gave the president a more conservative, 43 percent approval number among independents. But even that poll showed him in net positive territory. Just 39 percent of independents said they disapproved of Obama’s performance, marking a startling reversal since October, when his disapproval rating was 15 points higher with independents than his approval rating.
Analysts point to a number of explanations for Obama’s rise, including his reassuring response to the Tucson shooting, his willingness to cut deals with the congressional GOP and the presence of a new political foil for Obama, in the form of emboldened conservative Republicans.
The bigger picture is that Obama seems to be getting at least something of a second chance with a hugely influential slice of the electorate that abandoned Democrats in droves during the 2009 and 2010 elections.
Republican pollster David Winston acknowledged that Obama has had a good run with the political middle lately.
“There are two events that have occurred that are significant and I think people are trying to think through: He agreed to work with the Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts and, two, he delivered a good speech in Tucson,” Winston said.
But Winston emphasized that while independent voters may be in the political center, they aren’t in the “ideological center,” meaning that even under the best of circumstances they’ll be a difficult group for Obama to hang onto.
“Independents are a center-right group,” he said. “That’s why Republicans have been able to put together majorities and that’s the challenge to the president.”
Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein had a similar assessment of why Obama’s numbers have improved, arguing that Obama is again projecting the even-handed image that led independent voters to like him in the first place - and that he began to lose over the course of his first two years in office.
“Without apportioning blame for the lack of bipartisanship, the takeaway for a lot of voters was basically, the house is on fire and we’re bickering about which tchotchkes to save,” Gerstein said, citing the protracted debate over health care that unfolded amid economic stagnation.
“I don’t think they’re necessarily looking at Democrats again. They’re looking for leadership,” he continued. “Why has Obama rebounded? First and foremost, he heard the message about working together and that there has to be more compromise.”
The fact that independent voters are even relatively upbeat about the president is striking, given what a clear, negative judgment they issued on his party last November.
After backing Obama by 8 percentage points in 2008, independents supported Republicans by a 19-point margin in the 2010 congressional elections.
On a state-by-state level, some of the swings were even more stunning. In Wisconsin, independents voted for Obama by 19 points in 2008. In the state’s 2010 Senate race, they broke by 13 points for now-GOP Sen. Ron Johnson – a 32-point shift in just two years.
In Pennsylvania, independents went from supporting Obama by 19 points to backing Republican Senate candidate (and now Sen.) Pat Toomey by 10 percent.
Other presidential battlegrounds, including Ohio and Florida, showed similar movement among independents in 2010. And a year earlier, Virginia independents went from supporting Obama by 1 percentage point to backing Republican Bob McDonnell for governor by a 33-point margin.
That Obama’s numbers are even slightly bouncing back among these voters is a testament to their volatility.
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm that’s one of the few to show Obama’s approval with independents still underwater, said it’s hard for any politician to cement in place their standing with independent voters.
“Independents are anti-politician in general,” Jensen said. “We find very few elected officials who are particularly popular with them and that’s partly because choosing not to identify with either major political party is a general sign of skepticism toward our political system and the politicians who fuel it.”
That’s especially hard for Democrats, Jensen argued, because independents are “a right leaning group to begin with and that means the deck is stacked against Obama being popular with them from the start.”
PPP continues to show Obama with just a 37 percent approval rating among independents, compared with a 57 percent disapproval rating. That’s the most pessimistic recent polling result for the president with this group of voters.
But a survey from ABC News and the Washington Post also placed Obama’s approval rating in net negative territory with unaffiliated voters, showing 46 percent approving of his performance and 51 percent disapproving.
And while Gallup gives Obama a solid, 46 percent approval rating with independents the pollster recorded only a modest, single digit increase since mid-December, when Obama was at 41 percent.
Still, coming a few months after devastating midterm elections, when Democrats lost 63 House seats, six Senate seats and a half-dozen governorships, even somewhat more stable numbers are an improvement for the president’s party - and a sign that independents are once again up for grabs.
“Independent voters are the ultimate jump ball in politics. They’re up on the rim, rolling around, sometimes they fall in the hoop, sometimes they don’t,” said Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary under President George W. Bush. “I see no evidence that they have locked in on anybody or anything, including Republicans, Barack Obama or Democrats.”
Summing up Obama’s recent gains, Fleischer added: “He tipped the independent ball into the hoop for a week.”
Obama may also be benefiting from the fact that the same Republican antagonists who spent two years hammering him on health care, spending and the economy now have a responsibility to govern.
In the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, the Republican Party’s net favorability rating sank by 11 points – from 28 percent favorable, 35 percent unfavorable in December, to 23 percent favorable, 41 percent unfavorable this month.
Democrats, meanwhile, returned to near-parity in the poll, going from 13 percent favorable, 43 percent unfavorable last month to 29 percent favorable, 33 percent unfavorable now.
Those aren’t blockbuster ratings for either party, but with a group of voters that often considers all its options unpalatable, it’s at least a sign that Democrats can again compete to be the least-bad option for independents.
“Just because I don’t think Obama will ever be very popular with independents doesn’t mean I don’t think he’ll win them in the 2012 election. Independents end up making a lot of ‘lesser of two evils’ calculations when it comes to voting,” Jensen said. “I think Obama’s slightly unpopular with independents at mid-40s approval but that he can still win a majority of their votes next year if the GOP doesn’t come up with a better candidate.”
Winston emphasized that even in some of the polls that show Obama doing better with independents, many of those voters still disapprove of his handling of the economy - the issue most strategists believe will decide the 2012 election.
“He has not put back together his majority coalition, by any stretch,” Winston said, adding that Obama’s address to Congress on Tuesday might be a good indicator of whether he can sustain his gains.
“I think the State of the Union is a very big speech for President Obama, because basically what we’re going to see in that speech I where he thinks he can go with his policies, given that last election.”
“If the GOP goes suicidal and runs Palin the entire middle will go for hussein again.”
As much as I like Palin, I agree.
I see this as Politico of the Leftist bent joining in on the current kickoff of the Obama disinformation campaign for reelection in 2012.
If we look about almost all directions we can see a massive startup of the machine that is going to inundate us with OBS for almost two years. This article is part of that startup IMO.
Probably worse, more like 20%. It will be ‘64 all over again. Palin is right on the issues but the media and the ‘Rats will do to Palin what they did to Goldwater, only on steroids. Obama won’t be running against Palin, he’ll be running against a ‘Rat and media-created caricature of Palin. And the sheeple will buy into it.
“Why would he be considered the only “viable” choice? I don’t get it.”
You have a point... there is one “Republican” I’ve heard independents mention... Romney. Independents are spoon fed by the media. As such, the ones I know consider almost any Republican as too radical, too extreme.
De-nile is not just a river in Egypt. I think you (as many here on FR do) see the world through the filter of your own lens. This country is made up of millions of voters who want all sorts of free stuff and will vote for the person who is promising them the MOST free stuff.
Only about 35-40% can be counted on to vote for their country over their pocket book and closet of give-aways.
Politico got that direct from sacred mouth of the Holy Creator of Crop Circles.
Obama is up to 52% approval in Rasmussen, and even higher in some other polls.
Many people here mistakenly believed there was some nationwide “revolution” taking place against the left and big government. The truth is, there is no “revolution”. Conservative grassroots are asserting themselves via the Tea Party and pushing the GOP to the right, but the country as a whole has in no way rejected the social welfare state.
The minute the new Republican House tries to cut much of anything, the usual howls of protest will come from the media and the majority of the public will direct their ire at Republicans for trying to “starve kids”, “steal old people’s social security”, etc. We’ve seen this before in 94’95’ and were about to see it again.
Things will have to get much, much worse before the sheeple in this country realize the nanny state is unaffordable and always fails. It could still be a very long time before the masses even begin to accept this.
Absolutely, Reagan was re-elected by 49 of 50 states and couldn’t whittle a dime out of government spending.
“Independent is just another name for a wishy-washy moron who considers himself a deep thinker.”
I think you’re on to something here. I have been so disgruntled with my RINO Senator as well as all the others that I began to think of myself as an Independent voter. However, there is no way in hades I would vote for a democrat so I reckon I’m still just a disgruntled Republican.
I find it is hard to get conservatives to give up on their favorite big-government positions.
Emotionalism wins over pretty much everything for most humans. Engendering cognitive dissonance in someone just makes them mad at you.
We’re Independent and Proud.
And we’re not fence sitters.
We’re Old School American.
IF so, which I highly doubt, they are dumb
She is more viable than Romney, McAmnesty, or Chuckleby however. Those will lose the conservative base - who likely will never vote for another RINO under any circumstance.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.