Rasmussen...
What They Told Us:
Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Osama bin Laden went down, and President Obama has gone up – in the
polls, that is.
Americans overwhelmingly endorse the president’s decision to kill bin
Laden and don’t believe a greater effort should have been made to bring
the terrorist mastermind to trial. Eighty-six percent (86%) of Adults
approve of the president’s decision authorizing the mission to kill bin
Laden. Only 14% say the special operations forces involved in the
mission should have tried harder to capture bin Laden so that he could
have been given a fair trial.
A month ago, voter confidence in U.S. efforts in the War on Terror had
fallen to its lowest level in over four years, but that confidence has
soared following the weekend killing of bin Laden. Fifty-five percent
(55%) of voters now believe the United States and its allies are
winning the War on Terror, the highest level of confidence measured
since early February 2009. Voters have only rarely expressed this much
confidence in seven years of surveying on the question.
Voters are also much more confident that the country is safer today
than it was before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that bin Laden
orchestrated.
Americans still remain highly concerned about the possibility of a
terrorist attack in the United States in the near future, but that
concern has not increased because of the killing of bin Laden. Most
also feel bin Laden’s death will not worsen U.S. relations with the
Muslim world.
However, Pakistan where bin Laden was found may be a loser following
the weekend’s events. Eighty-four percent (84%) of Americans think it’s
at least somewhat likely that high-level officials in the Pakistani
government knew where bin Laden was hiding. That includes 57% who say
it is Very Likely they knew. Just 15% now feel that the United States
should continue military and financial aid to Pakistan.
The president, on the other hand, has clearly benefited at least in the
short term from the killing of bin Laden.
In April, Obama’s full-month Presidential Approval Index rating was
–15, showing no change from March but down four points from January.
But by week’s end, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking
Poll found the lowest level of Strong Disapproval for Obama since July
2009. Overall, it was his best Approval Index rating in three months.
Grades for the president’s national security performance also bounced
higher, but ratings for his handling of economic issues held relatively
steady. This highlights the president’s longer-term problem since
voters continue to regard the economy as the number one issue in terms
of how they vote, well above national security.
More than seven years ago, U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein at a
time when Iraq was the central front in the War on Terror, and Hussein
was public enemy number one. That capture led to an immediate increase
in consumer and investor confidence.
The Rasmussen Consumer/Investor Indexes show a similar response this
week. By Friday, the consumer index was up seven points since the
announcement of bin Laden’s death, and the investor index was up nine
points in the same period. But both are still down from three months
ago. Only 10% of investors rate the U.S. economy as good or excellent
these days, showing little change from Sunday. Forty-seven
percent (47%) give the U.S. economy a poor rating, down six points from
Sunday.
April was a turbulent month for consumers, according to the Discover
U.S. Spending Monitor, but ultimately changed little from March.
The Rasmussen Employment Index, which measures workers’ perceptions of
the labor market each month, regained five points in April after
falling to a recent low in March. Yet despite April’s gain, confidence
in the labor market is still down from the beginning of 2011. Just 19%
of working Americans now report that their firms are hiring, while 25%
say their firms are laying workers off. It has been nearly three years
since the number reporting that their firms are hiring has topped the
number reporting layoffs.
Voters continue to believe tax cuts and decreases in government
spending will benefit the nation’s economy. But most also still think
government spending will go up under the Obama administration.
Senate Republicans are calling for side-by-side votes on the
president’s 2012 budget proposal and the House-approved debt reduction
plan by Republican Congressman Paul Ryan. While opposition to Ryan’s
proposal is increasing, even more voters are saying no to the
president’s. Just 30% favor Obama’s budget proposal, while 50% oppose
it. Twenty percent (20%) are undecided.]
By comparison, slightly fewer voters (26%) favor Ryan’s proposal, but
fewer (34%) also oppose it. A sizable 40% still don’t know enough about
the plan to have any opinion of it.
Despite the recent first-ever press conference by a Federal Reserve
Board chairman, voters continue to view the Fed’s performance with
skepticism and are evenly divided when asked whether the Fed chairman
or the president have more clout when it comes to the economy.
For the first time since Democrats in Congress passed the national
health care bill in March of last year, however, support for repeal of
the measure has fallen below 50%. Yet most voters still believe free
market competition rather than more government regulation is the better
way to reduce the cost of health care in America.
As for challengers to the president’s reelection, New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie appears to have the solidest support when likely
Republican primary voters are asked who they would definitely vote for
now. Despite the media coverage he’s been getting, more primary voters
say they would definitely vote against Donald Trump than for him.
In fact, just 15% of all voters think Trump is seriously running for
president. Trump’s unfavorable ratings have been going up, and 62% of
voters believe the media is paying too much attention to his interest
in running for the presidency.
Most voters continue to feel they have very little in common
ideologically with the average member of Congress. But Republicans in
Congress are now seen as more conservative than they were a month ago.
The honeymoon period may be over for House Speaker John Boehner, too,
with his favorable marks falling sharply from last month’s high.
Republicans held a three-point lead over Democrats on the Generic
Congressional Ballot for the week ending May 1, 2011. That was up one
point from the previous week which marked the narrowest gap between the
parties since October 2009.
In April, the number of unaffiliated voters in America grew for the
fourth straight month. Now, 34.8% of American Adults consider
themselves to be Republicans, 33.5% say they are Democrats, and 31.7%
say they’re not affiliated with either major party. The April results
represent the fifth time in the past six months that there have been
more Republicans than Democrats in the nation. They also mark the
lowest number of Democrats ever recorded in Rasmussen Reports tracking
since November 2002.
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