Dem Poll: Obama Dragging Down His Own Party

By Josh Kraushaar and Jessica Taylor // September 22, 2011 | 5:03 p.m.
Updated: September 22, 2011 | 5:15 p.m.

One of the Democratic party's leading pollsters released a survey of 60 battleground districts today painting an ominous picture for Congressional Democrats in 2012. The poll shows Democratic House candidates faring worse than they did in the 2010 midterms, being dragged down by an unpopular president who would lose to both Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

Pollster Stan Greenberg released the poll with some sugary spin for Democrats, downplaying the results by arguing that the president's jobs plan will improve the party's fortunes.

"This is obviously not the best moment to judge the Democrats' eventual fortunes--with fewer voters identifying as Democrats, with Democrats themselves less enthusiastic about the president, and with his overall approval rating down 7 points and losing independents in these districts," Greenberg wrote in his memo. "We do not yet know the public's reaction to the president's latest initiatives, but there is reason to believe they can help him and the Democrats here."

But the numbers - at least right now -- are ominous for Democrats, and echoed some of the takeaways from the GOP special election upset in New York City last week. Instead of an overall anti-incumbent sentiment impacting members of both parties, voters are taking more of their anger out on Democrats. When voters were asked whether they're supporting the Republican incumbent or a Democratic candidate, 50 percent preferred the Republican and just 41 percent backed the Democrat.

Voters in these districts are more supportive of Republicans than they were during the 2010 midterms, when 48 percent backed the Republican candidate and 42 percent backing the Democrat. In 2010, Republicans netted 63 House seats - their best showing since 1948.

Respondents were lukewarm about their current Republican representatives - 39 percent approved, while 33 percent disapproved, and 28 percent were undecided.

President Obama's job approval rating in the battleground districts is just 41 percent, and only inches up to 43 percent in the 30 more-competitive seats that are a little more Democratic. Both Perry and Romney hit a near-majority of 49 percent against Obama in the battlegrounds, suggesting that voters are more concerned with casting their ballot against Obama than caring about who the Republican nominee ends up being. In head-to-head matchups, Romney leads Obama, 49 to 43 percent, while Perry leads Obama, 49 to 45 percent. Asked who they supported in the 2008 presidential election, 47 percent of voters said they backed Obama and 43 percent said they backed John McCain. (Obama won 52 percent of the vote in the battleground districts, while McCain took 47 percent.) A whopping 75 percent of respondents said the country is headed in the wrong direction, with just 17 percent believing it's on the right track. On a conference call, Greenberg admitted it wasn't a good time for Democrats, still in somewhat of a political hangover after losing the Queens and Brooklyn based seat to succeed former Rep. Anthony Weiner. But he said there could be hope for Democrats in Obama's recently proposed jobs plan. "We're at a moment of change in the direction the president is taking, and I don't think we yet know where that goes," said Greenberg. Respondents seemed intrigued by Obama's plan, with a 45 percent plurality saying they favored the plan, while 41 percent opposed it. When told the plan would extending the payroll tax cut and extend unemployment benefits, the number supporting it jumped to 54 percent. The live-caller survey of 1,000 likely 2012 voters in 60 GOP battleground districts was conducted Sept. 14 through 19 with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.

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