CNN poll: Obama approval 47/50

Even though this CNN poll focuses a lot on immigration and race relations, and includes artificially large samples of Blacks and Hispanics, the Hispanic numbers are BAD news for Obama and the Democrats.

With regard to job approval on issues, Obama only gets positive ratings from Hispanics on Health Care, Immigration, and Race Relations, but on other, non-race-related issues, approval/disapproval ratings among Hispanics are similar to those among Whites. But Obama has very strong ratings on ALL issues among Blacks–as if the respondents are reacting to Obama’s race and don’t really care about the issues.

In the generic ballot vote, Republicans get 39% of the Hispanic vote among the special additional Hispanic sample, and 42% of the overall Hispanic vote, which is unusually high. The “immigration” issue could hurt Republicans in Congressional elections among Hispanics, but Republican candidates need to stress issues like the economy, jobs, the deficit, and foreign affairs, where opinions of Hispanics line up with those of whites. Health care is a little more dicey, since most Hispanics seem to support ObamaCare while whites are sharply against it, and Republican candidates may have to adjust their message to how the Dem Representative actually voted in the House.

Even the “generic ballot” vote among Blacks is bad news for the Democrats–14% of Blacks plan to vote for Republicans for Congress. That might not sound like much, but McCain only got 8% of the Black vote against Obama in 2008, while nearly twice as many Blacks will now vote for a Congressional candidate who opposes Obama.

Exit question for Obama: is his lawsuit against the state of Arizona, designed to gin up support for Democrats among Hispanics, backfiring since Democrat support among whites is now below 40%?

Steve Z on July 28, 2010 at 1:12 PM

I think there are a lot of people in this country who refuse to see people based on the content of their character instead of the color of their skin. Unfortunately, I think most of those who have this problem are no longer white. No one takes seriously racially divisive whites. If you’re a skinhead, you’re ignored. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Boyd Watkins, Cornell West, and so many other so-called “leading” blacks are given platforms everyday to stand on and spout their insanity.

Until we minimize ALL people who obsess over race, we’re going to be stuck in a place where we actually elect a racially divisive man to the white house and no one thinks any of it is too strange.

TheBlueSite on July 28, 2010 at 12:49 PM

Excellent points. This is one reason why conservatives need to have black conservatives running for Congress in majority-black districts, to shift the debate from race relations to other issues that affect ALL Americans, like the economy, health care, energy, foreign relations, etc.

Why is it that Charlie Rangel can get away with paying dirt-cheap rent on four rent-controlled apartments in Harlem (meant for poor people, not Congressmen!) while cheating the Government out of hundreds of thousands in taxes, while he writes tax laws for US to pay, but if somebody questions this, they are “racist”?

Why is it that New Black Panther thugs can get away with patrolling polling places with weapons, because the President and the Attorney General are black? If some white redneck had done something like this, he would be in jail, and justifiably so! Why can’t some people understand that we have nothing against Barack Obama’s skin color, but we don’t like socialism?

When can we all agree with Martin Luther King and judge all people by the content of their character, and that we all have equal rights, opportunities, and responsibilities under the law? He had a dream, but maybe it’s still a dream.

Steve Z on July 28, 2010 at 1:50 PM