Analyzing the State Legislative District Polling – Part 3: The Obama Effect

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As we move into the dog days of August, the calendar will quickly turn to September and election season will be in full swing.  Before that begins, it makes sense to stop and see what the landscape looks like right now by analyzing some of the details of the legislative district polling that Civitas has done over the past couple of months.

Part 3: “The Obama Effect”
This week’s look inside legislative district polling will focus on the impact Democratic President Barack Obama’s popularity (or lack thereof) is having on unaffiliated voters and their voting patterns this year. 

We have discussed in Part 1 and Part 2 how the unaffiliated voter is becoming more and more important in North Carolina politics.  Unaffiliated voters who swept Obama and Democrats into office in 2008 are now on the verge of kicking them out the door.  The Obama effect is alive and well in 2010, and unfortunately for Democrats it’s having the opposite effect than it did just two years ago.

Looking at the results from two years ago, Obama was able to carry North Carolina not only through increasing his base-voter turnout, but also by winning a larger share of unaffiliated voters than many Democratic candidates before him.  In an October 2008 Civitas poll, weeks before the presidential election, Obama’s favorability rating with unaffiliated voters was +16 (54% favorable, 39% unfavorable).  Civitas polling also showed Obama leading Republican challenger John McCain by roughly 8 points among unaffiliated voters in the weeks before the 2008 election.  There is little doubt that Obama’s ability to win unaffiliated voters helped propel him and other Democrats to victory in North Carolina in 2008.

But in just under two years time, the tables have turned. In a Civitas August 2010 poll of unaffiliated voters, Obama’s favorability rating had fallen to -7 (42% favorable, 49% unfavorable).  Obama has suffered a net loss of 23 percentage points in his favorability rating and his prospects for recovery do not seem to be improving.

As bad as his favorability rating is statewide, his standing in many competitive districts across North Carolina is even worse.  Civitas district polling asked a slightly different question in legislative districts also in August – a job approval question based on Obama’s performance – and the results are the same.  Unaffiliated voters now overwhelmingly disapprove of the job Obama is doing as President, and are punishing candidates of his party due to those feelings.

The chart below details Obama’s net job approval rating among unaffiliated voters from the competitive legislative districts that Civitas has surveyed.  (Click on district for full results).

There appears to be some distinct regional differences of Obama’s job approval in certain districts.  HD 36 and HD 103 are suburban districts in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, and while Obama’s approval has turned negative, it isn’t nearly as bad as his approval is in other more rural districts.  In SD 25, which includes Anson, Richmond, Stanly and Scotland counties (additionally, all are in the 8th Congressional District held by Democrat Larry Kissell), Obama’s job approval is lower with unaffiliated voters than it is with Republicans.  In most other rural districts his job approval is negative from 20 to 48 points.

Down the ballot, this negative opinion of Obama is translating into suppressed Democratic support on the generic ballot for legislative candidates.  Comparing the percent of unaffiliated voters who approve of Obama to the Democratic share of the generic ballot, it appears that a theoretical ceiling is created.  Democrats perform no better on the generic ballot than Obama’s approval rating; and in most cases, the generic ballot lags the approval rating by a few points.

Thus, the lower Obama’s job approval falls among unaffiliated voters, the smaller share of the vote Democratic legislative candidates can count on receiving. 

It is often theorized that mid-term Presidential year elections are simply referendums on the voters’ satisfaction with the current administration’s term in office.  By these numbers, voters – especially unaffiliated voters – are increasingly dissatisfied and are set to take it out on President Obama’s party in November.