Gallup: Obama approval among independents down to 38%

July 7, 2010
by Ed Morrissey

Barack Obama won the Presidency by convincing independents to break away from the GOP and from John McCain, promising them a new, post-partisan, centrist direction and agenda. Even after passing Porkulus by locking Republicans out of the process and pushing ObamaCare last spring, Gallup’s survey a year ago showed Obama still holding 56% of independents. Now that number has sunk to 38%, while his rolling 3-day Gallup average job approval drops to 44% (via Andrew Malcolm):

Thirty-eight percent of independents approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, the first time independent approval of Obama has dropped below 40% in a Gallup Daily tracking weekly aggregate. Meanwhile, Obama maintains the support of 81% of Democrats, and his job approval among Republicans remains low, at 12%. …

Over the past year, Obama has lost support among all party groups, though the decline has been steeper among independents than among Republicans or Democrats. Today’s 38% approval rating among independents is 18 percentage points lower than the 56% found July 6-12, 2009. During the same period, his support has fallen nine points among Democrats (from 90% to 81%) and eight points among Republicans (from 20% to 12%). the rest