President Obama's job approval rating is at a new low, averaging 40% in July 26-28 Gallup Daily tracking. His prior low rating of 41% occurred several times, the last of which was in April. As recently as June 7, Obama had 50% job approval.Obama's approval rating averaged 46% in June and was near that level for most of July; however, it has stumbled in the past few days, coinciding with intensification of the debt ceiling/budget battle in Washington.
Obama's 40% overall approval rating nearly matches the recent 41% approval Americans gave him for handling the debt ceiling negotiations. Though Americans rate Obama poorly for his handling of the situation, they are less approving of how House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are handling it. Gallup does not include ratings of Congress or congressional leaders in its Daily tracking, and thus, there is no overall job approval rating of Boehner, Reid, or Congress directly comparable to Obama's current 40% overall job approval rating.
Obama's job approval rating among Democrats is 72%, compared with 34% among independents and 13% among Republicans. In the prior three weeks, his average approval rating was 79% among Democrats, 41% among independents, and 12% among Republicans.
And outside groups are following Lee Atwater's dictum of "always kick `em when they're down," as National Journal reports:
On the same day the latest Gallup tracking poll showed President Obama's job-approval rating falling to a new low of 40 percent, a conservative group moved to keep him on the ropes, announcing it has purchased $1 million worth of television ads blasting the president's handling of the debt ceiling debate.
"In 2006, Senator Barack Obama, said, quote, 'raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,'" says the ad commissioned by Americans for Prosperity, before cutting to a clip of Obama as president saying "we have to extend this debt ceiling through the next election."
The ad follows several spots from a range of outside groups that have highlighted the debt ceiling debate in attacks against candidates for federal office, and in some cases, the president himself.
