Monday, July 26, 2010

July Rasmussen: Obama needs a strong finish

I've been keeping a running tally on President Obama's Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll and July is looking like the worst month to date by a decent margin.  With 5 polling days remaining, the President needs to average below -14.6 on the Presidential Approval Index to avoid being tagged with a -17 average for the month - the worst yet of his presidency.

Worse, right now the average works out to be -16.91, practically a full -17 without the rounding that Rasmussen does in these numbers.  Worse still, even if Obama does nip under -16.5 to keep the same -16 rating from June, he'd still have lost nearly a full point since June averaged out to -15.67.  Which means - yes, Obama is currently down over one full point from June.

So, Obama's numbers are trending like they were when Congress crammed down the "Health Care Reform" acts, only he is starting from a lower point, and all the major legislation left is extremely unpopular and not only splits the Democrat voting base, but also its caucuses in Congress, while its signature accomplishment is being targeted by a majority of likely voters for repeal.



Going out on a limb with conjecture:

  • If these numbers solidify or drop, Congress has to deal not only with its HCR mess, but Obama scapegoating by mid-September/mid-October.
  • This seems to be a leading indicator that the public is about to assign Obama "ownership" of the country's problems, if they haven't already.
  • With his prominent hand in the Middle East wars and the US-Israeli relationship, even a war or terror attack will not wag the dog or provide a rally around the flag effect, Obama will take blame for his departures from the largely successful Bush policies.
  • The Democrat Party needs smooth sailing through October to avoid a 50+ seat loss.  Good news will not help enough and any more bad news is a disaster.