American Idol Ratings Tank - photo: NYDailyNews
The last two Obama Prime-Time press conferences drew 49.5 and 40.4 million viewers respectively – his last conference, held on April 19th, drew 28.8 million viewers, a loss of 29%. All major networks and cable stations carried the conference with the exception of Fox Network – the 8 pm series “Lie”, viewership remained unchanged from the prior week, therefore, it is unknown at this time, which cable networks (Animal Planet, History, MTV, the Weather Channel) the general population was watching instead of the President.
That said, his decline in viewership basically matches his overall decline in the polls, from a high of 68% in January 2009 (gallop), dropping, in February to 63% (Gallop), and as of today, Rasmussen reports an overall, “approval” rating of 54%, with disapproval over his performance increasing to an overall 45%. Obama’s “strongly approves” are at currently at 34%, and have remained between 35 and 34% since April 9.
Given the political ideological makeup of the nation, these statistics indicate that the President is "preaching to the choir", as 35% of voters now define themselves as Democrats, with 28% defining themselves as Republican - the balance are either unenrolled or another party affiliation. In other words, he’s lost the interest of the all important independent voter, which does not bode well for those 2010 senate and congressional Democrat races held in states and districts with high percentages of unenrolled voters. Should this trend continue, or worsen for Obama, there will be a definite change in the balance of the Senate and Congress come November 2010.
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