Then-Sen. Barack Obama campaigned with former President Bill Clinton by his side near the eve of Florida's 2008 elections, the two pictured here in Kissimmee in late October. Clinton had carried the pivotal state in his reelection. Obama carried it in November, the first Northern Democrat to do so since the 1960s. A new poll shows the president's job approval below 50 percent in Florida. (Photo by by Emanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty Images)
by Mark Silva
In Florida, which President Barack Obama carried by a 2.5-percentage point margin in the 2008 elections, the president's public approval level has fallen below 50 percent among voters questioned for a new survey.
The virtually even split in voter-opinion about the president portrayed in the new Quinnipiac University poll - 47 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval - marks a long slide from the 58-percent approval rating that Obama held in Florida in early June, when just 35 percent voiced disapproval.
This is Obama's lowest approval in any national or statewide poll conducted by the independent Quinnipiac University, the Connecticut-based university's polling institute reports.
And the health-care debate may have a lot to do with it: Florida voters approve of the protests that have been waged against the president's health-care initiatives by a margin of 55-35 percent. By a margin of 79-14 percent, they also reject the notion advanced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the protests are "simply un-American.''
"It's no coincidence that as skepticism about the president's health care and economic programs grows, his job approval drops,'' says Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "His loss of support (in Florida) is something the White House will undoubtedly be paying attention to as the calendar shifts toward 2012.''
In 2008, Obama's victory over Republican rival John McCain in Florida provided part of his electoral landslide - only Southern Democrats had carried the Sunshine State in presidential elections since the 1960s (and Bill Clinton carried Florida only in his 1996 reelection.) Any indication of slumping support for the president in Florida could provide a new base for a potential Republican rival in 2012 - and while the popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will be running for the Senate next year, retired Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, younger brother of the former president and son of the first President Bush, remains a favorite of many in his party.
The Florida voters surveyed oppose enacting health-care legislation if it "significantly'' increases the federal budget deficit - though the president has pledged that any plan he approves must be "deficit-neutral,'' as he put it in a nationally syndicated radio show yesterday. By a margin of 71-23 percentage points, Floridians don't believe the president can keep that promise.
At the same time, the idea of creating a government health insurance plan draws support in this survey: 58 percent supporting it, 36 percent opposing it. Yet Floridians say they oppose the idea of Democrats in Congress using their majorities to push through a bill without any Republican support - by a margin of 62-35 percentage points.
The president's own personal favorability rating has settled at 51 percent in this survey. But that, too, is down from 62 percent in a June 10 Quinnipiac poll.
But the 47-percent job approval registered in the newest survey "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," Brown notes.
Overall, 46 percent of the voters surveyed in Florida say Obama's 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.
But by a margin of 48 - 34 percentage points, they say the president's health-care plan will hurt rather than help the economy.
The survey of 1,136 Florida voters was conducted Aug. 12 - 17 and carries a possible margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
Comments
Not hard to understand when you look at the fact most elderly Americans populate Florida and the republican party has spent a great deal of time lying to the older Americans. Remember......the "death panel" is out to get you. Keep the governments hands off my medicaid.
Posted by: bill r. | August 21, 2009 10:29 AM
Sounds like Florida is waking up from being under a spell called "Change", wish Chicago would wake up.
Posted by: Inky | August 21, 2009 10:32 AM
gee billy, republicans lieing to old folks is your only logical retort to president Obama's failing - falling poll numbers?
When will you wake up from your drunken state and realize the guy has some big problems that he himself has created.
All of his failures can't be laid at the feet of the opposing viewpoint. Are you twelve years old or just the only elderly American that still believes in the hype and rhetoric?
Posted by: springfield | August 21, 2009 10:42 AM
Sounds like the goon squads and the Corporate shills, once again, have buffaloed the voters in Florida. Obviously, if the poll numbers are accurate, than we, Democrats, must work the cities and towns and let the good people of Florida, know, not to believe all those lies, with which the Republican/Libertarian Party are trying scaring them. The truth will set us free !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | August 21, 2009 10:55 AM
All of his failures can't be laid at the feet of the opposing viewpoint.
Posted by: springfield | August 21, 2009 10:42 AM
Funny springy.......when did "death panels" become an opposing view. It's an out and out lie. it is shameful. If lying is an opposing view......you guys got a lock on it.
Posted by: bill r. | August 21, 2009 11:06 AM
Well, BHO can thank himself for this. He took the passive approach, letting the Dems in congress create the plans being debated. Now it's all hung around his neck.
He should have proposed a simple plan of;
1. Common sense regulation of the private insurers.
2. A robust public plan with particulars including monthly premiums.
3. Medicare power to neg. with pharma.
He then should have stated that he would veto any bill that came to his desk that did not meet these specific requirements.
As it is, BHO is being vilified for a plan ordained by the medical ins. giants, Billy Tauzin, and the Baucus Caucus. Talk about an axis of evil.
Of course the actual solution was never on the table; Single Payer.
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | August 21, 2009 11:15 AM
Geee bill r. --The democrats were all over tv calling senior citizens at town hall meetings unruly mobs and un-American...Do you think that has something to with obama's poll numbers going south? Of course not...in your simple mind, we're just all racists.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | August 21, 2009 12:24 PM
"Sounds like the goon squads and the Corporate shills, once again, have buffaloed the voters in Florida"
I think that people have their own mind set on this and are not driven by good squads or Corp shills. Who are we to put down people with different opinions - ah well
Posted by: BigbadSouthsideJim | August 21, 2009 12:30 PM
While all the republicans are getting wee-wee'd up.....can any of them explain their plan? Where is the plan?
Posted by: bill r. | August 21, 2009 12:35 PM
How come John D hasn't commented yet? Let me do it for him............."Ahh, once again more ramblings from the wacky loony left on Obimbo’s failing numbers. Worst President for infinity. Just last night Bill O'Reilly told me to say........wait, I'm not supposed to mention that part.....whoops, I don't think I am going to get paid for this post. Damn!
Posted by: Tim | August 21, 2009 1:16 PM
Of course not...in your simple mind, we're just all racists.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | August 21, 2009 12:24 PM
Well I've read enough of your posts to say with certainty you are a racist. If you believe shouting down other Americans to allow only your view isn't a mob, so be it. It seems like a demonstration to me. If you want to demonstrate...knock yourselves out, but don't do it where concerned citizen actually have questions rather than a hell bent agenda.
Posted by: bill r. | August 21, 2009 2:18 PM
Of course, the Swiftboating of Obama's Healthcare Reform has targeted seniors with lies and misrepresentation. Florida is a barometer of that, but Florida also just reported its population has dropped for the first time in decades.
It turns out the average age of conservatives in the US is 67 years old, which means a majority of conservatives are on Medicare. They already got their single-payer govt run healthcare covered. We see they don't want no one to touch it either and apparently don't want anyone else to get the same kind of coverage. Maybe they deserve it - its not for me to say - but withholding any healthcare insurance reform for future generations is selfish.
What's really ironic is that Republicans open state they want to do away with Medicare entirely, but Republicans decided to stir up a hornets nest suggesting healthcare reform will destroy Medicare. Ridiculous hypocrisy.
The real warning here is these lies are starting to fall flat on themselves and that a majority of Americans aren't going for the sleazy swiftboating politics that favor billionaire wealthcare over American healthcare.
Posted by: Hank | August 21, 2009 2:59 PM
little bill? since you cannot defend anything in the ObamaCare plan (which is really not his plan at all) your only retort is kid stuff which fits you well.
Where's the republican plan little bill? Your handlers won't let you read it. It actually makes sense, is truely a bi-partisan effort and that would just drive you off the edge so they're taking pity on your small mind.
Posted by: springfieldSpringfield | August 21, 2009 3:34 PM
Look, Obama is the first President with a substantial plurality in the popular vote in a LONG time.
In the first year in office Congress traditionally give the new President the tax bill he wants and other legislation he ran on.
So get on with it and give him what he wants.
There is no doubt he will be re-elected.
The same can't be said for obstructionists in Congress.
Posted by: ornery | August 21, 2009 5:07 PM
little bill? since you cannot defend anything in the ObamaCare plan
Posted by: springfieldSpringfield | August 21, 2009 3:34 PM
Oh please mommy (she too called me little bill) tell me what part to defend. tell me mommy what the plan is that you big strong sensible conservatives have put forth to teach me how to be humbled. Please oh please share the republican wisdom and answers with me so I can learn.......what the republican plan is. Hr 3400 is kinda like a joke so please give me the real plan.
Posted by: bill r. | August 21, 2009 7:51 PM
Wow.
Caption that photo.
Posted by: ornery | August 22, 2009 8:13 AM
Speaking of "Storm Warnings," what's happening to 'Global Warming' -uh, Global Climate Change crisis management/fear mongering??? Never let a good crisis go to waste! "Under my plan of cap'n trade, uh, your electricity bills, umm, will necessarily skyrocket," - President Owebama. The Swamp, Lib Media, Algore & the objective Weather Channel used to adore Global Warmin- er, Global Climate Change (sorry; can't quite get used to the new moniker). Silly lib "journalists" (j.k.) and posters on The Swamp used to worship at the altar of jet-setter Gore. Bush 2 & Miss. governor Haley Barbour caused hurricane Katrina by not signing on to Kyoto, acc. to Bobby Kennedy Jr. Every lib newspaper editor, b4 most of them were relegated to obsolescence, chastised non-believers as 'flat-earthers, heretics, penguin clubbers....' "There is no more denying the effects of man-made global warming." "The Science is Settled," Algore's Inconvenient Gaffe. Enter the EPA's suppressed report:
http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf
oops.
Enter the report by meteorologist Anthony Watts that nearly 9 of 10 US surface temp monitoring stations do not comply with NOAA own guidelines for distance from an artificial heat source.
http://static.cbslocal.com/station/wbz/wbz/2009/may/SurfaceStations.pdf
crap.
But scientists all agree...(celebs Keanu Reeves, Leo DeCaprio and all nearly all of Hollywood's elite who pre-screened "An Inconvenient Spoof."
More than 30,000 scientists have signed on to the Petition Project, refuting man-made catastrophic global warming, 9,000 with PhD's. Names were reconfirmed in 2007 by the volunteer run Petition Project.
http://www.petitionproject.org/frequently_asked_questions.php
- Doh! (Homer S.).
How much will Cap'n Trade cost the average American? There's still much debate. But what you can count on is that it won't just be those households who are winners of life's lottery and pulling in more than $250K.
There's never any recourse for hysterical, misguided, half-baked liberal policies which destroy economic prosperity and increase government. They just move onto the next cause. Lucky libs.
Posted by: ThepartyofOWE | August 22, 2009 11:42 AM
Speaking of "Storm Warnings," what's happening to 'Global Warming'
Posted by: ThepartyofOWE | August 22, 2009 11:42 AM
Since we like to misdirect, speaking of warnings, why did Bush ignore the warning Bin Laden to stick America? Why did the warnings Cheney himself gave the country in the 90s about the quagmire attacking Iraq would be.
Posted by: bill r. | August 23, 2009 9:23 AM
' bill r": That is both dumb and blatantly unfair. Silva mischaracterized it the other day, but, in Florida, the first time Jeb Bush ran against Chiles, there was very late push poll aimed at seniors claiming Jeb Bush wanted to take away Social Security. Now that is sowing fear.
Second, I have explained to you multiple times about the death panel concept.
Here is a reference from England, by Brits, that is exactly that.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html
I really suggest you read it, but you won't.
Rick
Posted by: Rick Caird | September 3, 2009 11:44 AM
Pres. Obama,
Goodby, I hope.
Posted by: JENNY | October 30, 2009 9:11 PM