Posted today on the Real Clear Politics blog by Tom Bevan:
A rather surprising finding from the newly released CNN poll. Question three on the national survey of 1,136 adults (which includes an oversample of African-Americans) asks, “Do you consider the first six months of the Obama administration to be a success or a failure?”
Thirty-seven percent (37%) said they believe the Obama administration is a “failure,” while 51% consider it a “success” and 11% say it’s still “too soon to tell.”
An identical question was asked of the Bush administration in an August 2001 CNN/Gallup/USA Today survey. At the time, 56% said the Bush administration was a “success” while only 32% considered it a “failure.”
(Link [to the detailed CNN/Opinion Research poll data])
In a related RCP story, the latest Quinnipiac poll shows President Obama with just a 50% approval rating, the lowest of his presidency. This is a drop of seven percentage points in just one month. Quinnipiac also found that nearly half of American voters feel that President Obama “acted stupidly” in the recent conflict between black professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and white police officer Sgt. James Crowley. By a margin of 62 to 26, respondents said Obama should not have intervened.
The latest Rasmussen poll shows similar approval results of only 49% and a steady decline since he first took office:
