Reuters/Ipsos poll: Obama steady, Republicans get higher marks on economy
President Barack Obama’s job approval rating held steady at 45 percent since late October despite last month’s “shellacking” of Democrats in the midterm elections, a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Dec. 2-5 showed.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton scored the highest favorability rating on a list of prominent officials and politicians, followed by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a potential Republican presidential contender, and General David Petraeus.
At the bottom of the list were conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh with the lowest favorability rating, followed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
In 2012 wooing the independent voter is going to be important for candidates with 19 percent of Americans identifying themselves as independents.
When it came to confidence in which party is better able to deal with specific issues, Republicans fared better than Democrats on the economy, deficit, terrorism and taxes, while Democrats were given higher marks on education and the environment.
“Republicans are positioning themselves well heading into the 2012 presidential campaign,” Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said.
Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama at news conference)
Twitter opinion analysis shows even split between parties
Social media hasn’t been around long enough for pundits to determine how accurately it reflects the mood of a nation, but Democrats grasping for positive news might take hope from a shift in the tone on Twitter.
Our analysis of some 1.6 million tweets since August, using sentiment analysis software from market research firm Crimson Hexagon, shows a more favorable trend for President Obama’s party in recent weeks.
When we first examined online sentiment back in the summer, we found considerably less enthusiasm among Twitter users for the Democrats than for the Republicans.
In mid-September, however, there was a shift, with the number of pro-Democratic tweets rising to meet the pro-GOP numbers and eventually surpassing them. This dynamic has held relatively stable for the last month as you can see from this graph:
This movement is a continuation of the trend we noticed in mid-September. Pro-Democratic numbers began to pick up then amid the rise in the profile of the conservative Tea Party movement within the Republican party.
There has been an interesting move in negative sentiment as well since late September – the 23rd to be exact. That day saw a spike in anti-Republican tweets, many of which were potshots taken by GOP opponents at the party’s “Pledge to America,” which was officially unveiled that day.
The NY Times published an article on this trend yesterday, but given the new-ness of the sentiment analyisis tools the politcal campaigns are using, gauging public opinion via Twitter is still a bit premature. Here’s the article, and a link to a blog explaining the accuracy of sentiment analysis tools:
http://www.domusinc.com/blog/2010/11/usi ng-social-media-to-gauge-political-suppo rt-and-trends/
Bachmann says her “high-profile” congressional race targeted by top Democrats
Second-term Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who started the “Tea Party Caucus” in the House of Representatives this summer, says her “high-profile” congressional race is being targeted by some very high-profile Democrats ahead of the Nov. 2 election.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set her sights on ousting her from the congressional seat, Bachmann said. The outspoken Republican is a social conservative and is known for her strong Christian faith.
“I’ve been one of Speaker Pelosi’s top targets to defeat this fall,” Bachmann said on NBC’s “Today” show. ”President (Bill) Clinton came in, he was campaigning against me. In a couple of weeks Speaker Pelosi will be in Minnesota as will President Obama. Mine is a very high-profile race, and she’s trying to do everything she can to defeat me.”
Bachmann led Democrat Tarryl Clark by 9 points in the race for Minnesota’s 6th congressional district in a mid-September poll, according to Real Clear Politics.
Bachmann shrugged off questions about whether the Tea Party was stepping into social issues like gay rights after a controversy erupted this week over remarks by Carl Paladino, Republican candidate for New York governor who is backed by the conservative movement.
“I think really that isn’t the issue that we’re focusing on in this election,” she said. “The issue is jobs.”
She targeted her criticism at the Democrats she said were targeting her.
When you’re a high profile dingbat who takes federal subsidies while railing against them on the campaign trail you’re bound to garner unwanted attention.
Reuters-Ipsos poll: Democrats hold slim leads in California races
Democrats are leading in top California races a month before the election, but by margins too tight to offer great comfort.
Senator Barbara Boxer leads Republican challenger Carly Fiorina in the Senate race 49-45 percent among likely voters, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted Oct. 2-4.
That 4-point difference is smaller than the 4.7 percentage point margin of error which shows how close the race is between the three-term senator and the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Ipsos pollsters say it is unlikely, with the higher margin of error and all, that the findings were reverse. Boxer has consistently had a lead over Fiorina in public opinion polls.
Democrat Jerry Brown has a 7-point lead over Republican Meg Whitman in the race for governor, 50-43 percent, among likely voters.
The majority of registered voters, 88 percent, had heard the allegations that Whitman hired an undocumented housekeeper, but 72 percent said that information made no difference in how they plan to vote.
The Democratic candidates in both races are benefitting from Democrats’ large advantage among registered voters in California, Ipsos pollsters said.
Enthusiasm about the election improved among both Democrats and Republicans since June, with 75 percent of Democrats now saying they are certain to vote vs. 60 percent in June, and Republicans now 83 percent vs. 73 percent in June.
I’m sorry, but 600 people with 448 likely voters is a tiny sample size. I won’t trust these polls until you guys get at least 1000 people with 800 likely voters.
Washington Extra – Get out of town
Like schoolchildren gazing out the window on a sunny June day, Congress can’t wait for that final bell to ring. But lawmakers still need to hand in a final term paper before they can skip out the door. Instead, they’re asking the teacher for an extension.
Before lawmakers head home on Wednesday or Thursday to campaign for reelection, they must pass a temporary spending bill to make sure the government can keep its lights on for the next several months.
Beyond all the speechifying, the basic job of Congress each year is to pass 12 spending bills that cover government operations for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Each year, pretty much, they get the job done several months late. That plays havoc with federal agencies, which must continue to operate on last year’s budget while implementing this year’s operations.
This year in Congress has been even more dysfunctional than usual. The House has only approved two of the 12 spending bills, and the Senate hasn’t approved any. Lawmakers could roll them all into one unwieldy “omnibus” bill when they return for a lame-duck session in November, but that work could easily slip into the new year.
Lawmakers may get an extension on that term paper, but they’ll have to hand it in eventually. And it won’t be any easier to write it in December than September.
Here are our top stories…
House set to pass bill aimed at Chinese yuan
Obama campaigning tactic: bash Bush years
President Barack Obama has apparently decided that the way to win voters’ hearts is to warn them against a return to the Bush years.
He’s been in campaign mode this week trying to drum up enthusiasm for Democrats worried about losing their majority in Congress with just one month left until the Nov. 2 election.
In a backyard in Iowa, Obama told voters the election was a choice between going back to the Bush years or moving ahead (although he never uttered his predecessor’s name).
“When you look at the choice we face in this election coming up, the other side, what it’s really offering is the same policies that from 2001 to 2009 put off hard problems and didn’t really speak honestly to the American people about how we’re going to get this country on track over the long term,” Obama said.
Wait a second, did he just question Republicans’ truthfulness? Sounds like it.
“You can’t say you want to balance the budget, deal with our deficit, invest in our kids, and have a $700 billion tax cut that affects only 2 percent of the population. You just can’t do it,” Obama said.
Looks like the gloves are starting to come off. It’s not quite down to the wire yet and there’s plenty of time left for the rhetorical punches to escalate.
Yeah, let’s see how that works out for you getplaning.
Just weeks before the election the unemployment has grown to a whopping 10.1 percent.
Obama and the democratic led congress are simply…failures.
Reuters-Ipsos Poll: Republican Portman leads in Ohio Senate race
It’s a bad news and not-so-bad news scenario for Democrats in Ohio.
The bad news is in the Senate race where Republican Rob Portman has a strong 13-point lead over Democrat Lee Fisher, 50 percent to 37 percent, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll.
“It’s starting to look insurmountable,” Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson says of the lead held by President George W. Bush’s former budget director and U.S. trade representative.
A majority of Ohio voters, 60 percent, said Portman’s work with Bush made no difference in their vote, while another 30 percent of registered voters said it made them less likely to vote for Portman, including one in five independents. Nine percent said it made them more likely to vote for him.
The not-so-bad news is Democrats are closing the enthusiasm gap in Ohio, although they still lag Republicans who say they are certain to vote.
Now, 79 percent of Democrats say they are certin to vote compared with 67 percent in August, while 91 percent of Republicans said they were certain to vote, compared with th 89 percent in August.
The boost in Democratic enthusiasm helped improve Governor Ted Strickland’s chances of re-election over Republican John Kasich in a gubernatorial contest that is virtually tied.
Presidents keep to-do lists too, check Obama’s pocket
Even presidents don’t escape to-do lists. Granted they include more weighty items than mundane reminders to pick up groceries after work.
President Barack Obama, it turns out, keeps one in his pocket.
“I keep in my pocket a checklist of the promises I made during the campaign, and here I am, halfway through my first term, and we’ve probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do,” Obama says in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine (yes, the same publication that did a profile of General Stanley McChrystal which led to his firing).
“I’ve got two years left to finish the rest of the list, at minimum. So I think that it is very important for Democrats to take pride in what we’ve accomplished,” Obama says.
The president is in campaign mode. It’s just a month before the November election and he’s trying to drum up enthusiasm for Democratic candidates who are worried about losing their majority in Congress. And being on the cover of Rolling Stone helps the president get an audience with younger voters.
Obama talked about problem-solving and how the easy ones get handled before reaching him. “The issues that cross my desk are hard and complicated, and oftentimes involve the clash not of right and wrong, but of two rights. And you’re having to balance and reconcile against competing values that are equally legitimate.”
(Perhaps the answers are blowing in the wind?)
Spin, spin, spin…. ha, ha, ha. The O-Blame-a interpretation of Bob Dylan not wanting to be seen with a sleazy politician is hilarious.
Washington Extra – Comfort Zone
President Barack Obama was jubilant at the bill signing for the small business lending legislation, but with just slightly more than a month to go before the election, voters appear consistently unmoved by White House attempts to lift the economy.
The president acknowledged that the small business bill came after a “long and tough fight,” and he castigated Senate Republicans – well, all but the two who bucked their party – for standing in the way.
Be on the lookout for the Reuters/Ipsos poll on Ohio tomorrow, you can find it on our midterm election page.
And my colleague Deborah Zabarenko points out the following that would rattle anyone’s comfort zone: A telescope on Maui has detected an asteroid that will come within 4 million miles of Earth in mid-October — close enough to be considered a “potentially hazardous object,” according to astronomers at the University of Hawaii.
The space rock won’t hit Earth in the immediate future, but we still have a one-word reaction: YIKES!
Here are our top stories from today…
Obama signs small business bill into law
Twitter opinion analysis shows change in sentiment following ‘Tea Party Tuesday’
Our analysis of political opinions expressed by Twitter users shows that the ‘enthusiasm gap’ that previously favored the GOP over the Democratic Party seems to have evened out recently.
Our last analysis of the Twitter sentiment data provided by market research firm Crimson Hexagon indicated that while there were similar numbers of tweets criticizing both political parties, there were many more pro-GOP tweets posted on the social networking service than pro-Democratic ones – a result in line with what some saw as a lack of enthusiasm among Democratic voters as the midterms approached.
Since that analysis there have been two changes in the trends we’ve been seeing. The first was a divergence in the “anti” numbers with anti-Democratic sentiment far outweighing anti-GOP. This trend was most pronounced in late August – a period that coincided with the controversy surrounding the planned cultural center and mosque near the Ground Zero site in downtown Manhattan.
While anti numbers diverged during this period, the pro-party tweets held to largely the same pattern they had previously, with pro-GOP tweets outnumbering pro-Democratic ones. You can see all of these trends in the chart below.
In recent days though there’s been a change in the look of the graph. As the mosque story faded in prominence the anti numbers seem to have returned to their previous parity – with both sides trading the lead back and forth.
There’s been a major change in the pro-party sentiments however. The number of pro-Democratic tweets has risen enough to erase the gap between the parties. If these results hold they would mark the the dissipation of the enthusiasm gap we saw previously.
This is basically useless info. There is no demo, likely voter or registered voter criteria. I could get as accurate information just by sticking my finger into the wind.
