Zogby Interactive Poll: Obama's Job Approval Sinks to Record Low 45%

UTICA, New York - President Barack Obama's job approval rating has sunk to a record low of just 45%, the latest Zogby Interactive poll shows.

Fifty-one percent of likely voters now say they disapprove of the President's job performance.

"None of these numbers looks counter-intuitive to me. Gallup, NBC, and Pew all have Obama at record lows. Rasmussen also shows low approval. Things are volatile out there and news travels fast.

There is a lot of anxiety over healthcare," said Zogby International President and CEO John Zogby. "The President let it get away from him and voters are scared right now. They are experiencing sacrifice overload and feel more threatened than empowered. The President is being forced to play defense and he is much better when he is in possession of the ball.

But do not underestimate Obama. Last August he was toast."


The Zogby Interactive survey of 2,530 likely voters nationwide was conducted Aug. 18-20, 2009, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.0 percentage points.

Zogby International also uses a four-point scale of job performance. Using that measure, this latest survey finds 16% rate his job performance as excellent and 27% as good. Another 11% gave him a fair rating while 45% said his job performance is poor.

Both scales show a significant drop from a Zogby International telephone poll conducted July 31-Aug. 4, which showed 53% approving of Obama's job performance, and 38% disapproving.

At that time, 51% rated his job performance as excellent or good and 48% rated it as fair or poor. Zogby's last survey showed an improvement over a Zogby Interactive survey conducted July 21-24. Then, 48% approved and 49% disapproved. In that same poll, on the four-point scale, 47% gave Obama excellent or good grades, and 53% chose fair or poor.

While this latest poll shows Democrats continue to overwhelmingly approve of Obama's job performance (84%), just 6% of Republicans say the same.

Most independents (59%) now disapprove of the job the President is doing. "He has lost support among political independents, that's the biggest change from our last survey.

He is also starting to lose support he had picked up among investors and frequent Wal-Mart shoppers -- who both are on the conservative side but where Obama had been making gains," Zogby said.

"Remember, Zogby polling has generally been ahead of the curve during the past three administrations." For a complete methodological statement on this survey, please visit:

http://www.zogby.com/methodology/readmeth.cfm?ID=1412