Unlikely voters so disappointed in Obama, they overwhelmingly approve of his job performance

[babylonsister]

http://www.openleft.com/frontPage.do

Unlikely voters so disappointed in Obama, they overwhelmingly approve of his job performance
by: Chris Bowers
Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 05:00


One fairly common narrative in left-wing media is that Democrats will suffer in mid-term elections unless they excite "the base." "The base," we are told, is so disappointed in President Obama and the Democratic Congress, that it will stay home, thus resulting in widespread Democratic losses in 2010.

That narrative is difficult to reconcile with the fact that people who are registered to vote, but who are considered unlikely to vote in 2010, overwhelmingly approve of President Obama's job performance (PDF):

Democracy Corps, February 20-24, 2010
1,001 2008 Voters; 851 Likely 2010 Voters; 150 Drop-Off Voters

Q.11 Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?
Likely Voters Registered Unlikely Voters
Approve 47% 59%
Disapprove 48% 35%

Despite the small sample size, this is not an isolated finding. Previous Democracy Corps polls in November (Approve 61%--32% Disapporve) and January (61%--33%) have also found President Obama with a sky-high job approval rating among people who are registered to vote but who are considered unlikely to vote in 2010.

How can "the base" be so disappointed in President Obama that they are deciding not to vote, when registered voters who are considered unlikely to vote overwhelmingly approve of President Obama's job performance?

The argument that "the base" is not going to turn out because they are disappointed in Obama does not hold up to available empirical evidence. And Democracy Corps is, to the best of my knowledge, the only polling organization that is tracking President Obama's job approval rating among people who are registered to vote but considered unlikely to vote in 2010. Other organizations have asked tangential questions, but not the basic questions, such as job performance. That's too bad--every polling organization that publishes likely voter results should publish crosstabs on unlikely voters, not to mention asking the unlikely voters open-ended questions about why they are unlikely to vote.

A better explanation is that the Democratic base is relatively youthful, and younger people don't turn out for midterm elections. Both of these are empirical observations, not conjecture. Until there is better and more frequent polling about what unlikely voters think, it remains the most demonstrable hypothesis on the market today.

[donco6]

1. Unrec for the whiny title. n/t

[Jennicut]

2. Midterm elections always have higher turnouts from older voters.

I wish there was something that could motivate younger voters to turn out. I am 34 now and more motivated...perhaps younger people think midterms effect them less?

[ShortnFiery]

5. You're already getting the EXCUSES lined up?

:crazy:

Anything but the truth: Obama is taking his marching orders from the EXACT SAME People as The Bush Administration, i.e., the corporate moneyed elite.

[karynnj]

9. Bush vetoed the SCHIP expansion, that Obama signed

Bush fought for his wars, privatizing social security, onerous bankruptcy bills, eliminating very environmental restriction he could and the international gag rule on abortion.

We are now playing on the other end of the playing field. We are fighting for things we want. The fact that you wanted more progressive versions ignores that they are not passable - the votes are not there. So, you attack the people on our side trying to get the best bill through. Other than Kucinich is there a Democrat you approve of?

This Nader style language is not true and never has been. It seems to me that the people who buy it are so far to one end, their "map" of the political spectrum is as distorted as this New Yorker cover of a New Yorker's conceptual map of the United States.

http://www.newyorkerstore.com/Steinberg-Collection/New-Yorker-Cover-3291976/invt/124544

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ShortnFiery]

13. Name-calling is against the rules: You've done that twice now.

Very un-cool.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jennicut]

12. Huh? Just stating a well know fact.

I think you need to stop jumping on people all the time.

[ShortnFiery]

15. No, you were making excuses. You could have owned up to the obvious THEN shot back with your

own zinger one line. I did NOT call you "a name."

I think you need to stop taking every damn thing as an affront and just hit back with FACTS instead of name-calling.

Nobody can affect another person. We can only determine how we should respond to them. :shrug:

[karynnj]

16. In addition, the "likely voters" models usually take that into consideration

even though the respondents answers to questioned geared to estimate the likelihood are given more weight. This is also before the campaign has really started. It is entirely likely in the fall when the campaigns are up and running that the model will show fewer "pro-Obama" voters as they become convinced they should vote.

A contrarian way to look at the non-voter numbers is that there is a pool of people who agree with us that simply need to be convinced to vote. Now, taking this view from a Republican POV is less satisfying. They already have the bulk of their base energized and modeled as likely to vote - and they are not running away with the elections. They have far less up side potential. Now, I would take this as signaling that we need some uplifting ads that show that the Democrats are working to make things better and that they have had some success - and we need support to keep fighting. (Consider the lists of accomplishments that people like Prosense have posted. A lot has been done.) In fact, the best thing now might be for the Democrats to hit back hard on the Republican lie that Obama ignored Jobs and the economy to go after health care first. This is blatantly untrue and ignores the stimulus and the GM/Chrysler bail outs.

[JTFrog]

3. K&R for reality. n/t

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Horrible analysis. The BASE is people who VOTE

People who do not usually vote or vote in Presidential Elections but not in Midterms are not anyone's "base"

The base is your dependable voters... the core of support onto which you add less dedicated voters.

Of course the president is popular among Democrats. But if he is disproportionately popular with Democrats who are not likely to be voting this year than his popularity is of less use, electorally.

[Clio the Leo]

6. Ha! Funny.

I love irony.

[Jester Messiah]

7. Wait... what?

People who probably won't vote approve of him. How does that help?

[babylonsister]

8. They're registered but considered unlikely; maybe their

approval of the President might inspire them to go to the polls this year. One can hope.

[Bluenorthwest]

14. Hope changed.

So what good is 'approval' that does not translate into votes? How is it approval or support? This is meaningless drivel. And if it is not that, then it is awful news.
Those who do not vote do not matter. By their own choice.

[namahage]

18. Unlikely to vote in 2010.

Doesn't mean they won't vote in 2012.

[GeorgeGist]

17. The simplest answer to your BOLD question is:

BAD POLLING.