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What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls
Saturday, September 17, 2011 

The presidential primary process doesn’t begin for real for another four months, but the fluctuations in our polling over the past week are a good indicator of how topsy-turvy things are likely to be in the race for the Republican nomination. 

Before he entered his first debate as a presidential candidate, Texas Governor Rick Perry was the Republican frontrunner and held a three-point lead in a hypothetical matchup against President Obama. But Perry was the target for all the other candidates in the two most recent GOP debates, and now he trails the president 46% to 39%.  

Perry’s chief rival for the nomination, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, now holds a three-point lead on Obama.  But the president has stretched his lead over another GOP hopeful, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, to 13 points. The fluctuation in Perry’s, Romney’s and Bachmann’s numbers comes as a Generic Republican  candidate maintains a steady lead over the president. 

The changing fortunes of the Republican wannabes will be the chief topic on tomorrow’s Rasmussen Report radio program hosted by Scott Rasmussen. The program airs Sundays at 2 pm Central/3 pm Eastern on WLS 890AM in Chicago and WMAL 630AM in Washington, DC and streams online everywhere. 

The radio show is just one of several big changes going on here as Election 2012 shakes out. Check out our new subscription set-up to access all our horse-race polling and in-the-news surveys, and save 58% if you sign up now. 

Scott’s got a new book coming out, too. Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, will publish THE PEOPLE’S MONEY , a comprehensive review of history, budgetary documents and public opinion data that shows voters are far more willing than politicians to make the hard choices needed to reduce federal spending. THE PEOPLE’S MONEY demonstrates how the American people are the solution to budget issues, rather than the problem, and shows specific proposals supported by a majority of voters that would balance the budget, completely eliminate the federal debt and prepare the nation for the 21st century. 

Speaking of spending cuts, some people think there is room in the presidential race for a radical centrist candidate who would hold views somewhere between those of the president and whoever the Republicans nominate to oppose him. However, 44% of voters say that if there is a third-party candidate, they’d like to see someone who proposes less government spending than both the president and the Republican challenger. Only 11% would want to see a third-party candidate who proposed spending more than both the president and the GOP nominee. Twenty-nine percent (29%) would like to see the radical centrist who proposes spending in the middle - between the two major party contenders. 

But voters see little chance of any third-party candidate being elected president next year. However, 53% believe it’s at least somewhat likely that a third-party candidate could win the presidency in the next 10 to 12 years, although only 16% think it’s Very Likely. 

The economy is the issue on which next year’s presidential election is likely to turn as Obama’s Job Approval rating as measured by the Rasmsussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll suggests. One-out-of-two Likely U.S. Voters (50%) now believe that the president’s economic policies have hurt the economy. Thirty-two percent (32%) think the president’s policies have helped the economy, while eight percent (8%) say they’ve had no impact. 

Just 17% of voters say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest finding measured since just before Obama became president. 

These findings come at a time when the president is pushing a new $447 billion program to create jobs. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters favor the plan which includes the continuation of certain tax breaks, the passage of several stalled free trade agreements with other countries and new spending for education, infrastructure like roads and bridges and the further extension of unemployment benefits. Nearly as many (36%) oppose the plan, while 26% are undecided about it. 

The president has been pitching his jobs plan in speeches this past week in an effort to prod a reluctant Congress to pass it, but House Speaker John Boehner made clear late in the week that the tax increases Obama is proposing to pay for his plan have no chance of passage. 

Most voters continue to lack confidence in members of Congress reaching across the political aisle, but they feel Democrats are doing a better job at bipartisanship these days than Republicans are. 

A front-burner issue for House Republicans is the National Labor Relations Board’s challenge of Boeing’s new plant in South Carolina. The NLRB is investigating the company’s decision to build a new facility in the right-to-work state as an illegal move against the company’s labor union. Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans think Boeing should be able to open the plant in South Carolina without NLRB interference.

A solid plurality (48%) of Americans, in fact, think labor unions have outlasted their usefulness, although there’s a sharp difference of opinion between Republicans and Democrats on the question. 

The Rasmussen Consumer and Investor Indexes, which measure daily confidence in both groups, showed slight improvement this past week but are still below levels reached three months ago. 

Confidence in the nation’s banks has rebounded a bit from last month’s record low, but only 47% of Americans are at least somewhat confident in the stability of the U.S. banking system, with just six percent (6%) who are Very Confident. 

Eighty-five percent (85%) of Americans remain concerned about inflation, and most lack confidence in the Federal Reserve Board to keep it under control. The number of Americans who are concerned about inflation is just two points short of the highest level measured since regular tracking began in April 2009. 

The president has a new headache in the Middle East, too. The Obama administration is trying to avoid a vote in the United Nations next week that would elevate the status of the Palestinian Authority, a move strongly opposed by Israel as detrimental to peace talks in the region. Just 26% of U.S. voters believe the United Nations should recognize Palestine as a new nation and grant it full membership in the UN, while 34% are opposed. However, 40% of voters are undecided on the issue. 

Now that anti-government rebels appear to have won in Libya, support for the president’s decision to aid them is up slightly, but voters are still dubious that the change will be better for the United States or the Libyan people. 

Confidence among voters that the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan will get better in the near future remains near all-time lows. Less than one month after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan to end that country’s harboring of al Qaeda terrorists training against the United States. Nearly 10 years later, with Afghanistan now America’s longest war, 60% of Americans think that mission remains unfinished. 

Read it with links at Rasmussen