According to the Washington Post, President Obama has been hammering at Democratic fundraisers for the past few months that his party always gets “clobbered in midterm elections.” Although the midterm elections are usually regarded as a referendum on the sitting president’s performance, the Washington Post says that Obama is wrong to “BE AFRAID OF THE MIDTERMS!”
But with the president’s approval ratings on key issues according to a new Gallup poll at or below the 2010 lows that resulted in a Republican election landslide, Democrats should “be afraid” of an election wipeout in 2014.
When President Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, his key strengths according to the Gallup polling were expected to be in protecting the nation’s environment, improving the nation’s energy policy, and making America prosperous. A little over five years later, barely half of Americans believe he is doing a good job protecting the environment and only about one in four still believes Obama is doing a good job regarding energy or prosperity. The president’s dismal approval ratings are a mirror image of approval ratings during his first mid-term election, when the Democrats suffered crushing congressional and state legislature defeats.
Since 2009, Obama has suffered a 39% overall decline in his key strengths. But more importantly, the president has suffered a 9% decline since the election in 2012. He now is at the same levels as his first mid-term election in 2010 when the Democrats suffered crushing defeats that saw Republicans take away six governorships, six Senate seats, and 63 House of Representative seats.
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