By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
New polls are showing that American voters are rapidly losing faith in the Obama Administration with solid majorities now saying they will vote for the opposing party this November just to put a check on the power of both Congress and the President.
The Washington Post is reporting that the new poll reflects a 180-degree turn from where the public was 18 months ago, when the president first took office, and 60 percent of the people reported confidence in their new president. Today, those numbers have been reversed with 60 percent now saying they have lost confidence in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions for the country’s future.
“Four months before the midterm elections that will define the second half of his term, nearly six in 10 voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country, and a clear majority once again disapproves of how he is dealing with the economy,” the Post writes.
Confidence in Congress is even worse. The Post poll found more than a third of voters (36%) who said they have little or no confidence in either congressional Democrats or Republicans.
Disillusionment is even higher among crucial independent voters. A Gallup poll taken earlier this month found that only 38 percent of independents approve of the President’s job performance, a number that represents an 18 point drop from a similar poll taken last year.
A whopping two-thirds of all voters now say they are dissatisfied with, or angry about, the way the federal government is working.
This has resulted in a strong anti-incumbent mood with 62 percent of registered voters saying they will be looking for someone new this fall. Of these discontented voters, 49 percent side with Republicans and 45 percent say they will go with a Democrat.
These numbers confirm other polls that show a majority of voters in favor of a Republican controlled Congress in order to act as a check on the president’s policies. What spells real trouble for Democrats this fall is the fact that of those most likely to vote in the midterm elections, sizeable margins (56% vs. 41%) prefer the GOP.
Even more forboding for the president is the fact that his diminishing poll numbers put him in about the same place as President Bill Clinton was in the summer of 1994, just a few months before Republicans captured the House and Senate in an electoral landslide.
Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend that “there’s no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control.”
Democrats now hold a 255-178 edge in the House, with two vacancies in the 435-member chamber. However, anywhere from 40 to 60 House seats could be competitive by the fall. Republicans would need to take 40 seats in order to win the majority, which would place the current Republican leader John Boehner in line to replace the vastly unpopular Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
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