Weekly Tracking Poll: Summer Getting Hot and Ugly For Dems

Fri Aug 28, 2009 at 10:00:03 AM PDT
Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 8/24-27/2009. All adults. MoE 2% (8/17-20/2009 results):

FAVORABLE UNFAVORABLE NET CHANGE
PRESIDENT OBAMA 55 (58) 40 (38) -5

PELOSI: 33 (34) 58 (57) -2
REID: 32 (33) 57 (56) -2
McCONNELL: 18 (17) 64 (65) +2
BOEHNER: 14 (13) 64 (65) +2

CONGRESSIONAL DEMS: 40 (41) 54 (53) -2
CONGRESSIONAL GOPS: 14 (12) 73 (75) +4

DEMOCRATIC PARTY: 43 (44) 50 (49) -2
REPUBLICAN PARTY: 20 (18) 71 (72) +3
Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.

A continuation of the base erosion that began to raise its head last week, in addition to (for the first time) a significant dip in support from Independent voters, drove the Democrats lower for the second consecutive week.

President Obama's favorabilities dropped the most substantially this week, propelled by another three-point drop in support from Democrats (down to 80%, the lowest of his presidency), as well as a big shift among Independents (from 66% last week to 62% this week).

For the Democratic Party, and Congressional Democrats, the more modest dip in their numbers was driven, in equal parts, by Democrats and Independents.

On the flip side of the coin, the GOP and their counterparts in Congress get a modest bump this week, driven in fairly equal parts by Republicans and Independents.

The fairly interesting backdrop to this week's numbers is the fact that, for the first time in several weeks, the right track/wrong track metric saw some improvement, edging back up from a spread of - 11 (41/52) to a spread of - 9 (42/53).

There are only two saving graces for the Democratic Party in these numbers. The first is that they maintain the same six-point lead in the 2010 Congressional preference test, despite the erosion of their numbers elsewhere:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/28/773561/-Weekly-Tracking-Poll:-Summer-Getting-Hot-and-Ugly-For-Dems

workin' out for ya?

to finish their work on health care. the republicans could have had their little dog & pony shows, but the dems should have stayed in session, and would have avoided all this , by just saying "there's work to do, and it's no time to vacation".. They could have taken the week after Labor Day off.

Did anyone "learn" anything from all their town-brawl meetings? Nope.. just that insurance companies will pay big bucks to sponsor bus tours for low-information republicans, for the sole purpose of disruption public meetings.

These meetings were ill-prepared (for the most part), non-productive and a big waste of time (except for all the footage that republicans will re-use for commercials AGAINST us)..

aren't confident and assertive in their actions. The GOP is confident and assertive in their hateful messaging and lying.

Once the Dems get their shit together and really push this closer to passing, these poll numbers will swing back strongly in their favor.