Registered voters nationally are not satisfied with how President Barack Obama is handling the nation’s economy. According to this McClatchy-Marist Poll, four in ten voters — 40% — approve of how the president is dealing with the country’s economy while nearly six in ten — 57% — disapprove. Only 3% are unsure. Mr. Obama’s approval rating on the economy is the lowest of his presidency. His previous low was last September when just 41% gave him a thumbs-up on the issue…
There has been a change among Democrats and independents on this question. While 71% of Democrats approve of how the president is handling the economy, 27% disapprove. This is a 12 percentage point increase in the proportion of Democrats who disapprove since January. Among independent voters, 34% approve while more than six in ten — 63% — disapprove. Here, too, there has been a jump in the proportion of voters who are dissatisfied with how Mr. Obama is dealing with the economy. In January, half — 50% — shared this view.
His approval came back to near even in January at 44/48 but that was at a moment when 54 percent thought the worst was behind us economically. A few months of tepid growth and soaring gas prices later and 57 percent now think the worst is yet to come. Conventional wisdom has it that he’s a favorite to win if the economy’s improving come election day, but every period of false-start optimism like we’re seeing here weakens that logic. At some point, the blather about “recovery summer” and “recovery winter” will take on such a boy-who-cried-wolf overtone that he’ll need a loooong stretch of significant improvement before the election to convince voters it’s for real and we’re back on track.
