Half of Americans Do Not Believe President Obama Will be Re-elected

President's job rating one year from election lower than five of past six presidents at same time

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Oct 20, 2011, 10:08 ET

NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- One year from now the country will be in the final days of the 2012 presidential campaign. Most likely the final debates will have been held and the two candidates will be on their final campaign trips wooing undecided voters. President Obama will be trying to move on to a second term and one of the Republicans will be trying to stop that. However, the President is heading into this year-long campaign with only one-third of Americans (33%) giving the job he is doing positive ratings while two-thirds (67%) give him negative marks. This is almost unchanged from last month when 32% gave him positive ratings and 68% gave him negative ones.

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These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,463 adults surveyed online between October 10 and 17, 2011 by Harris Interactive.

Looking back

Going back to The Harris Poll Vault, we can take a look to see what the ratings of other presidents were one year before they attempted to win a second term. Only one, Jimmy Carter had lower ratings with 25% of Americans giving him positive marks while three-quarters (74%) gave him negative ratings.

PRESIDENTS' RATINGS OCTOBER ONE YEAR BEFORE ELECTION "How would you rate the overall job President (Name) is doing?" Base: All adults
		Positive	Negative
		%	%
Gerald Ford (10/75)	%	38	59
Jimmy Carter (10/79)	%	25	74
Ronald Reagan (10/83)	%	47	52
George H.W. Bush (10/91)	%	57	42
Bill Clinton (10/95)	%	47	52
George W. Bush (10/03)	%	59	40
Barack Obama (10/11)	%	33	67
Note: Not sure responses excluded; asked by phone prior to President Obama

Of these presidents, three won re-election, all with positive ratings over 45%. But, as President George H.W. Bush would be the first to say, high approval ratings do not guarantee re-election.

Congress and direction of the country

One thing President Obama can feel good about is his ratings are better than those of Congress. Just 5% of Americans give the job Congress is doing positive ratings while 95% give them negative ratings. This is almost unchanged from last month when 6% gave Congress positive marks and 94% gave them negative ratings. This sense of dissatisfaction is extended to how things overall are as well. Just one in five Americans (20%) say things in the country are going in the right direction while 80% say they have pretty seriously gone off on the wrong track.

President Obama and re-election

If the election for president was to be held today, over half of Americans (54%) say they would be unlikely to vote for President Obama while 40% say they would be likely to and 6% are not at all sure. When asked if they think he will be re-elected, half of U.S. adults (49%) say they do not think he will be while three in ten (30%) say he will and one in five (21%) are not at all sure. Even Democrats are unsure of his re-election chances as just half (54%) say they think he will be re-elected while one-quarter say he will not be (23%) and another quarter (24%) are not at all sure.

So What?

One year is a lifetime in American politics. Anything can happen in a blink of an eye that can change the momentum of a race, good or bad. But, while the sample is small, when approval ratings are below 40% one year out as they were for Carter and Ford, re-election does not seem to be in the cards the following November. Thirteen months from now we'll know if this is a true measure of re-election or not.

TABLE 1 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S JOB RATING - TREND "How would you rate the overall job President Barack Obama is doing?" Base: All adults
	TREND	Positive*	Negative**
	TREND	%	%
2011	October	33	67
	September	32	68
	August	32	68
	July	38	62
	June	38	62
	May 19th	45	55
	May 9th	46	54
	April	38	62
	March	39	61
	Feb.	42	58
	Jan.	44	56
2010	Dec.	36	64
	Nov.	38	62
	Oct.	37	63
	Sept.	38	62
	Aug.	40	60
	June	39	61
	May	42	58
	April	41	59
	March	41	59
	Jan.	40	60
2009	Dec.	41	59
	Nov.	43	57
	Oct.	45	55
	Sept.	49	51
	Aug.	51	49
	June	54	46
	May	59	41
	April	58	42
	March	55	45
Positive = excellent or pretty good. *Negative = only fair or poor.

TABLE 2 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S JOB RATING – BY PARTY & IDEOLOGY "How would you rate the overall job President Barack Obama is doing?" Base: All adults
	Total	Political Party			Political Ideology
	Total	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.	Cons.	Mod.	Lib.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE	33	5	62	27	10	35	63
Excellent	5	1	13	1	2	4	14
Pretty good	28	5	49	26	9	31	49
NEGATIVE	67	95	38	73	90	65	37
Only fair	32	27	29	37	24	38	29
Poor	35	68	9	36	65	28	8
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 3 CONGRESS' OVERALL JOB RATING "How would you rate the overall job Congress is doing?" Base: All adults
	Total	Political Party
	Total	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.
	%	%	%	%
POSITIVE	5	5	7	2
Excellent	*	-	1	*
Pretty good	5	5	6	2
NEGATIVE	95	95	93	98
Only fair	32	35	30	28
Poor	63	60	63	69
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 4 CONGRESS' OVERALL JOB RATING – TREND "How would you rate the overall job Congress is doing?" Base: All adults
	TREND	Positive*	Negative**
	TREND	%	%
2011	October	5	95
	September	6	94
	August	5	95
	July	8	92
	June	11	89
	May 19th	12	88
	May 9th	13	87
	April	8	92
	March	10	90
	February	14	86
	January	16	84
2010	December	11	89
	November	13	87
	October	11	89
	September	13	87
	August	15	85
	June	14	86
	May	15	85
	April	16	84
	March	10	90
	Jan.	16	84
2009	Dec.	17	83
	Oct.	16	84
	Sept.	19	81
	Aug.	22	78
	June	25	75
	March	29	71
2008	October	10	86
	August	18	77
	June	13	83
	February	20	76
2007	December	17	79
	October	20	77
	April	27	69
	February	33	62
2006	September	24	73
	May	18	80
	February	25	71
	January	25	72
Positive = excellent or pretty good. *Negative = only fair or poor.

TABLE 5 RIGHT DIRECTION OR WRONG TRACK "Generally speaking, would you say things in the country are going in the right direction or have they pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?" Base: All adults
	TREND	Right Direction	Wrong Track
	TREND	%	%
2011	October	20	80
	September	22	78
	August	16	84
	July	25	75
	June	32	68
	May	39	61
	April	26	74
	January	37	63
2010	December	29	71
	April	39	61
2009	August	46	54
	January	19	72
2008	October	11	83
	February	23	69
2007	December	18	74
	February	29	62
2006	May	24	69
	February	32	59
2005	November	27	68
	January	46	48
2004	September	38	57
	June	35	59
2003	December	35	57
	June	44	51
2002	December	36	57
	June	46	48
2001	December	65	32
	June	43	52
2000	October	50	41
	June	40	51
1999	June	37	55
	March	47	45
1998	December	43	51
	June	48	44
1997	December	39	56
	April	36	55
1996	December	38	50
	June	29	64
1995	December	26	62
	June	24	65
1994	December	29	63
	June	28	65
1993	June	21	70
	March	39	50
1992	June	12	81
	January	20	75
1991	December	17	75
	January	58	32

TABLE 6 VOTING FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA "If the election for president were to be held today, how likely would you be to vote for the current president, Barack Obama?" Base: All adults
	May 9	May 19	June	July	August	Sept.	Oct.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Likely	46	43	41	42	37	39	40
Very likely	33	32	30	30	27	26	26
Somewhat likely	14	11	11	12	10	13	13
Unlikely	47	49	52	52	55	53	54
Somewhat unlikely	7	8	7	8	7	7	8
Very unlikely	40	41	45	44	48	47	46
Not at all sure	6	8	6	6	7	8	6
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 7 VOTING FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA – BY POLITICAL PARTY "If the election for president were to be held today, how likely would you be to vote for the current president, Barack Obama?" Base: All adults
	Oct.	Political Party			Political Ideology
	Oct.	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.	Cons.	Mod.	Lib.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Likely	40	9	73	35	15	42	73
Very likely	26	4	55	20	9	26	53
Somewhat likely	13	5	18	15	6	16	20
Unlikely	54	90	22	57	82	50	20
Somewhat unlikely	8	5	6	10	5	10	6
Very unlikely	46	85	16	47	76	41	15
Not at all sure	6	1	5	8	4	8	7
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 8 LIKELIHOOD OF OBAMA'S RE-ELECTION "If you had to say now, do you think that President Obama will be re-elected, or not?" Base: All adults
	July	Sept.	Oct.	Political Party
	July	Sept.	Oct.	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.
	%	%	%	%	%	%
I think he will be re-elected.	35	30	30	9	54	28
I do not think he will be re-elected.	42	47	49	79	23	52
Not at all sure.	23	23	21	12	24	20
Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

Methodology

This Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between October 10 and 17, 2011 among 2,463 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

The results of this Harris Poll may not be used in advertising, marketing or promotion without the prior written permission of Harris Interactive.

J40806
Q1205, 1210, 1215, 1218, 1250

The Harris Poll® #110, October 20, 2011
By Regina A. Corso, SVP, Harris Poll, Public Relations and Youth Research, Harris Interactive

About Harris Interactive

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SOURCE Harris Interactive