The President in dangerous poll waters, - going negative may be the final straw - image: Chicago Defender
The Conservative Pollster (as in “careful” not a “political affiliation):Gallup shown the President’s approval rating hanging under 50% by a margin of eight points (as of November 5, 2011), in fact, the President has had a hard time breaking 50% and holding that “high” since March of 2010. This indicates that the electorate, who are said in most media reports to “support the President” – do not, by over 50%. Going into 2012, should schematic remain unchanged, then the President’s chances of reelection remain nil.
Moreover, his national job approval aside , a poll focusing on the key swing states paints a similar story – a USA/Gallup Poll indicates that Obama is losing twelve key swing states to a “generic republican” and statistically tied with Mitt Romney. The twelve states are: Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and oddly, New Hampshire. New Hampshire was one of the few New England states that flipped the entire state, from the Governor, to the legislature and Federal offices from Democrat to Republican in 2010.
Gallup USA Today Poll Key Swing States - image USA Todaydotcom - click to enlarge
The States in this poll showing strong to weak Democrat are: Washington, Oregon, California, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware are Rhode Island and HI. The hypothetical map of Electoral College votes shown below indicates that without those fourteen states turning towards Obama in the 2012 general, he will lose the Presidency. That said, state by state approval ratings for the President indicate problems in other states listed as, for lack of better terminology, “safe Democrat”, and in the last state by state match-up of job approval by Gallup only 10 states gave the President an approval over 50% - It goes without saying the word in this analysis by USA today is strongly “hypothetical”. Simply put, it does not add up – specifically when one looks at the satisfaction segment of the poll, focused on those “swing states”, making a sweep of more than ten states overall, highly unlikely. (See graphic from USA Today below)
Overall Satisfaction in "swing states" Low - image from USA Today dot com - click to enlarge
Finally, as if the numbers, as kind as they appear to be, are not enough, Politico is reporting that Obama’s campaign plans to go negative – and he plans to remain “clean” when it attacks opponents. Nice try, when one is speaking to the Occupy base, however, a plethora of negative ads coming out of the Obama Campaign, regardless of how “distanced” the President appears, will, in this atmosphere, lose any remaining independent voters, primarily leaving him with the base (which at this point in time, is not overly thrilled with the man, but would – in a match-up vote party line.). The base, the core Progressive Democrat base, makes up approximately 30% of the electorate on any given day - (based on identifier polling of political ideology and affiliation available at Gallup).
Negative advertising, regardless of party and or intent, from the local to the national stage, does little but attach itself to the unintended party –the individual seen as behind the ad. In the Politico piece, the author describes Obama’s negative style as one of making a “joke” of it, to his base, who responds favorably. That has to be the understatement of the year, and in addition, after looking at the most generous of scenarios (the swing states versus the balance of the data), it also smacks of denial.
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