bapifar01: Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation Poll: Obama approvals ticking downward among black voters

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation Poll: Obama approvals ticking downward among black voters

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 9/15-18 . Registered voters. MoE �3.1% (Obama trendlines 9/8-11, all others 8/25-28):

With Barack Obama's job approvals mired just a point off their all-time lows, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at his ratings among African Americans, who comprise not only a core Democratic constituency but a key group of supporters for the president. First, though, is a chart of Obama's trend over the last two months with all voters:

To regular poll-watchers, that ugly swoon in August isn't news. But it's important to keep in mind as a baseline against which we can compare specific sub-groups, in this case, black voters:

While African Americans haven't abandoned the president in anything like the numbers most voters have, there still does appear to be slippage among this group. Now, I must add the caveat that the sample sizes for these data points are small. We poll 1,000 people a week nationwide, which means the number of black respondents is typically about 130. (Individuals who identify as black comprise 12.6% of the country's population as a whole, according to the Census.) So when dealing with such small subsets, you have to exercise caution and not over-read any results.

That said, there does seem to be a discernable downward trend in Obama's job approvals among black voters, a group whose support he'd previously held on to with remarkable tenacity. (The most recent poll does show an improvement, but as I was just saying, it's unwise to read too much into a single week's numbers, given the sample sizes.) But could this actually be a good thing? A colleague of mine theorized that the White House's new, more aggressive (and progressive) strategy on jobs might stem from concerns that crucial parts of the president's base were starting to have second thoughts. It remains to be seen whether Obama's new-found willingness to confront Republicans turns his poll numbers around overall, but if this slippage among a vital constituency has helped put some fear into the president and his advisors, then this could wind up being a positive development after all.