A Washington Post / ABC News poll released today has some bad news for President Obama. His approval has slipped to 47%. A full 50% disapprove of the job Obama is doing.
I know what you are thinking. The liberal WaPo and equally liberal ABC News conducting a poll? Can this be a fair poll?
Ed Morrissee at Hot Air says NO!
The Washington Post and ABC News have published their latest poll, and try as they might, they still have bad news for Barack Obama. The President has lost seven points off of their poorly-sampled approval rating from January with the latest even-more-poorly-sampled survey today. Despite giving Obama a ten-point advantage, he drops to 47% approval and hits new lows on the economy:
Typical liberal polls. Slanted, weighted in favor of their desired outcome, small sample size. But Hot Air is correct in pointing out that despite the effort to skew the poll, Obama comes out smelling, well less than rosy.
Ed Morrissey has a good analysis of the skew on Hot Air and is worth the read.
But the poll, skewed in Democrats favor as it was, has another interesting part. They polled the survey takers on head to head questions between Barack Obama and potential Republican candidates. Their take (from the skewed poll) is that Obama beats all Republican comers. But does he?
Consider this Quinnipiac poll from 2003 pitting various potential Democrats against George W. Bush. (It is a safe bet that this poll was not slanted towards Bush.)
John Kerry, the eventual nominee, garnered just 39% to Bush’s 51%. In fact, Bush was over 50% with every Democrat mentioned. We all know the final results were much closer at 51% to 48%.
What accounts for this? Kerry’s winning personality and superb campaigning? Hardly.
Likely Republican voters had one choice, and likely Democratic voters had many. Those with a “dog” in the fight – that is, a favorite candidate, are likely to lie, claiming they would vote for the other party, in order to make their chosen candidate look like the “one” who can win.
But when it comes down to it, they are going to vote for party with which they identify.
The Quinnipiac poll was dead on for Bush, and Kerry received an additional 9% points.
So when the Democrat heavy results show Obama besting Mitt Romney by 4% and Mike Huckabee by 6%, and history shows a similar (but less skewed) poll undercounts the challenger by 9%, where does that leave President Obama?
And keep in mind, many of the candidates “tested” against Obama have not even declared themselves a candidate, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the eventual Republican nominee take an early lead out of the gate over the incumbent Obama.
And with Obama receiving less than 50% in such a skewed poll, it does not look good for him.
Article written by: Tom White
