Obama Tops Boehner on Budget Talks, With Much Broader Core Support

Barack Obama holds a substantial advantage over John Boehner in handling budget negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff: Nearly twice as many Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of the president’s work on the issue so far as favor the speaker’s approach.

That’s at least in part because many more people are in the dark about Boehner’s efforts, underscoring a president’s greater ability to command the spotlight to make his case – and to draw more unified backing from his party’s core supporters.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here: http://www.langerresearch.com/uploads/1144a5FiscalCliffNegotiations.pdf

Obama’s rating is hardly overwhelming: More Americans approve rather than disapprove of how he’s handling the cliff talks by a narrow 7-point margin, 49-42 percent. But Boehner wins approval from just 25 percent in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, while 49 percent disapprove; an additional 26 percent don’t know enough to say.

Obama is notably stronger in his base, marking the way in which a president often is better positioned than a less well-known legislative leader to draw loyalty from his party’s adherents. While about eight in 10 Democrats and liberals alike approve of how Obama is handling the talks, far fewer Republicans and conservatives, 38 and 35 percent, say the same about Boehner.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/12/obama-tops-boehner-on-budget-talks-with-much-broader-core-support/