Republicans know that they have a lackluster field of presidential candidates as they inch toward the 2012 primary season. Their only hope for defeating President Obama short of an act of God is to drive up his negatives, but a new AP/GfK poll shows that not only are Obama’s approval ratings remaining steady at 53%, but an incredible 84% said that the president is a very likable person.
The numbers in the AP/GfK poll show an electorate that is still not happy with the direction that country is going in. 62% of those surveyed said that the country is going in the wrong direction, which is a five point increase since the last poll was taken. 90% of respondents said that the economy is very important to them.
This would appear to set up a good environment for Republicans to saddle Obama with the economy and drive his approval ratings down, but something very interesting happens when you look at Obama’s approval numbers. They aren’t going down. Obama’s job approval rating is still at 53% which is where it has been since January. Obama’s personal approval rating was 59%, which is a four point increase since November. A majority of Americans (50%) believe that Obama should be reelected. On the question of the economy, respondents were split within the margin of error about Obama’s job performance on the issue. 47% of Americans favored Obama’s handling of the economy and 52% and did not. (The poll’s margin of error was 4.2%). When Americans were asked if they were happy with their lives, 80% said yes. Of course this is the Queen Mother of loaded poll questions, as very people are going to admit that they are miserable sad sacks just trying get through another pointless day of earth bound existence
The entire article is here....
http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-2012-approval-rating-2