{"id":5016,"date":"2013-06-10T08:05:49","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T08:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=5016"},"modified":"2013-06-10T08:05:49","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T08:05:49","slug":"storm-clouds-gather-for-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=5016","title":{"rendered":"Storm clouds gather for Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>The latest\u00a0Quinnipiac University poll, published today, will send shivers through the White House, even though Washington is experiencing its first heat wave of the year. The Quinnipiac survey is the first major survey to show that the wave of recent scandals hitting the Obama administration are beginning to damage President Obama\u2019s own standing with the American people. According to Quinnipiac, Barack Obama\u2019s job approval rating now stands at\u00a0just 45 percent, with less than half of voters viewing the president as \u201chonest and trustworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

President Barack Obama gets a negative 45 \u2013 49 percent job approval rating, compared to 48 \u2013 45 percent positive in a May 1 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University, conducted before the IRS allegations surfaced.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s biggest drop is among independent voters, who give him a negative 37 \u2013 57 percent score, compared to a negative 42 \u2013 48 percent May 1. He gets a negative 9 \u2013 86 percent from Republicans and a positive 87 \u2013 8 percent from Democrats, both virtually unchanged. Women approve 49 \u2013 45 percent while men give a negative 40 \u2013 54 percent score.<\/p>\n

Americans are divided 49 \u2013 47 percent on whether Obama is honest and trustworthy, down from 58 \u2013 37 percent, the last time Quinnipiac University asked the question September 1, 2011.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The Quinnipiac study also shows\u00a0deep-seated disillusionment<\/a>\u00a0with the federal government among American voters.<\/p>\n

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Only 3 percent of voters trust the federal government to do the right thing almost all the time, while 12 percent say they trust it most of the time; 47 percent say some of the time and 36 percent hardly ever. That compares to results of a Quinnipiac University poll in July 2010, four months before the Republican sweep that year on the back of anti-government sentiment, when 2 percent said almost always, 16 percent said most of the time; 50 percent said some of the time and 31 percent said hardly ever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Of the three major scandals currently engulfing the presidency \u2013 the IRS targeting of conservative groups, the Obama administration\u2019s response to the Benghazi terrorist attack, and the Justice Department\u2019s seizure of phone records belonging to Associated Press journalists, the IRS issue is making the biggest impact with voters.\u00a0According to Quinnipiac,\u00a066 percent of Americans disapprove of the way in which the IRS is handling its job, and 76 percent support the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS scandal. The Benghazi issue is also doing considerable damage to the Obama administration\u2019s image, with 46 percent believing \u201cthe Obama administration deliberately misled the American people about the events surrounding the death of the American Ambassador to Libya.\u201d Voters are generally less familiar with the AP story.<\/p>\n

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The Quinnipiac poll suggests trouble ahead for next year\u2019s Congressional mid-term elections, where the Republicans will be seeking to consolidate and expand their control of the House of Representatives, and possibly retake the Senate. Significantly,\u00a0among Independent voters, who are likely to decide many of the crucial House and Senate races in November 2014, 57 percent disapprove of Barack Obama\u2019s job performance, and 56 percent do not believe that the president is \u201chonest and trustworthy.\u201d By a 45 percent to 35 percent margin, Independents believe that Republicans in Congress are doing a better job than President Obama on handling the economy, the number one issue for the American electorate. Among all voters, Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans are tied at 43 percent. Overall, 68 percent of Americans are \u201csomewhat dissatisfied\u201d or \u201cvery dissatisfied\u201d with the direction the United States is taking, hardly a vote of confidence in Mr. Obama\u2019s leadership. Expect even worse figures for the White House in the coming weeks, as the pressure intensifies on a scandal-hit presidency. – Nile Gardiner, The Telegraph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest\u00a0Quinnipiac University poll, published today, will send shivers through the White House, even though Washington is experiencing its first heat wave of the year. The Quinnipiac survey is the first major survey to show that the wave of recent scandals hitting the Obama administration are beginning to damage President Obama\u2019s own standing with the … Continue reading “Storm clouds gather for Obama”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[90,2981,2980],"class_list":["post-5016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-obama","tag-obamas-job-approval-rating","tag-quinnipiac-university-poll"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/wehateyouobama.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5016"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5019,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions\/5019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}