Monday, July 25, 2011

CNN Poll: Obama Losing Support From The Democratic Base

Up until now, signs of any rank-and-file liberal Democratic "base" revolt against Obama have been few and far between. Perhaps that’s why a poll from CNN last week publicized as showing that liberals were the main source of his latest drop in approval ratings got more attention than a random survey normally captures.

After weeks of prolonged negotiations with Republicans around the federal debt and in the wake of the strong push back from Congressional Democrats against a 'grand bargain' to cut Soc. Sec. between the President and the House GOP leadership, a new CNN poll shows that support from the political left flank is starting to leave Obama.

President Obama registered an approval rating in line with other current polls, with 45% of the populace approving of his performance and 54% disapproving, slightly outside the TPM Poll Average of 45.0% approval and 50.1% disapproval.

But the troubling news for the President was within that approval number, where there is a growing number among his base who are disappointed: his rating among self-described liberals in the poll was only 71%, along with 80% self-IDed Democrats in the approval column.

From the CNN report:

"...drill down into that number and you'll see signs of a stirring discontent on the left," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Thirty-eight percent say they disapprove because President Obama has been too liberal, but 13 percent say they disapprove of Obama because he has not been liberal enough - nearly double what it was in May, when the question was last asked, and the first time that number has hit double digits in Obama's presidency."

It should also be noted that complaints of the President not being liberal enough were not just relegated to liberals themselves. 14% of self-described moderates who disapproved of Obama cited the same reason, and even 9% of conservatives.

The poll utilized phone interviews with 1,009 adults conducted from July 18th to the 20th. Read the full results here.

Read more @ Salon: Why the liberal base has so little leverage with Obama

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