President Barack Obama gets a 47 – 48 percent approval rating from Florida voters, down from 58 – 35 percent June 10, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
This is President Obama’s lowest approval in any national or statewide poll conducted by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.
Voters approve 55 – 35 percent of the protests against health care reform and reject 79 – 14 percent the argument that these protests are un-American.
Floridians also reject 59 – 37 percent enacting health care reform if it “significantly” increases the federal budget deficit. By a 71 – 23 percent margin, voters don’t believe Obama can keep his promise to reform health care without increasing the federal budget deficit.
Florida voters oppose 62 – 35 percent the idea that Democrats in Congress should use their majorities to push through a health care overhaul even if it only gets Democratic votes.
But voters support 58 – 36 percent creating a government health insurance plan.
“Although he still gets a 51 – 44 percent favorability rating, that’s down from 62 – 32 percent in June and the President’s 47 – 48 percent thumbs down verdict on his job performance makes Florida the first state in which a Quinnipiac University survey shows his job approval is underwater, even if his nose is right at the surface,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “This is also the first time that President Obama’s approval rating has fallen below the 51 percent of the popular vote that he won in Florida.
“At least in Florida, the protests against the proposed health care overhaul that have been surfacing at town meetings held by members of Congress have struck a chord with the public.”
“Voters approve of the demonstrations and they overwhelmingly disagree with the view expressed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that these protests are un-American,” Brown added.
“There is a partisan split on approval of the protests, as Democrats disapprove 61 – 29 percent. But on whether they are un-American, even Democrats don’t think so, 67 – 25 percent.”
Obama’s positive job approval among Democrats dropped from 91 percent to 83 percent. But a larger and politically more significant drop is among independent voters who disapprove 51 – 46 percent, down from a 50 – 42 percent approval June 10.
While lower income voters are more optimistic that Obama’s economic and health care policies will help them personally, that optimism drops as income rises.
Overall, voters say 46 – 42 percent that his policies will help the economy, but only 33 percent say it will help them financially, while 39 percent say it will hurt them and 25 percent say it will make no difference. By a 48 – 34 percent margin, voters say Obama’s health care plan will hurt rather than help the economy.
Only 38 percent believe his plan will improve health care nationally, while 45 percent say it will hurt health care.
And only 23 percent say Obama’s plan will improve the quality of the care they receive, while 38 percent say it will hurt their quality of care and 35 percent say it won’t affect their care.
Still, Florida voters trust Obama more than Congressional Republicans 42 – 38 percent to handle health care. And voters support several elements of Obama’s plan, including:
* 59 – 38 percent in favor of raising taxes on high-income couples to pay for health care reform;
* 57 – 34 percent in favor of subsidies for families earning up to $88,000 a year;
* 49 – 40 percent in favor of requiring businesses to provide employee health insurance.
“It’s no coincidence that as skepticism about the President’s health care and economic programs grows, his job approval drops. In 2008, President Obama’s ability to carry Florida was one of the surprises of the election. His loss of support there is something the White House will undoubtedly be paying attention to as the calendar shifts toward 2012,” said Brown.
From August 12 – 17, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,136 Florida voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points.
The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio and the nation as a public service and for research.
For more data or RSS feed – http://www.quinnipiac.edu/polling.xml.
