A second major polling firm sees an erosion of support for Barack Obama after less than two months in office.  Pew Research reports that Obama’s approval ratings have dropped below 60% and his negatives have climbed significantly after his first 50 days in office.  Their results parallel those from Rasmussen:

A new poll by the independent Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found that President Barack Obama’s popular support is eroding, with his approval rating dropping below 60 percent.

“President Barack Obama’s approval rating has slipped, as a growing number of Americans see him listening more to his party’s liberals than to its moderates, and many voice opposition to some of his key economic proposals,” the Pew Center concluded.

Its new survey finds Obama’s approval rating falling to 59 percent from 64 percent in February. It also finds the ranks of Americans who disapprove of the president’s job performance rising, to 26 percent from 17 percent.

The Pew top-line approval approximates that from Rasmussen, which has it at 56%.  Rasmussen, though, has the Strongly Approve rating at 36% while the Strongly Disapprove has shot up to 32%, giving Obama the slimmest passion gap of his presidency.  The overall Rasmussen numbers are 56%-43% on approval.

What has caused the erosion?  Pew says that Obama has increasingly become seen as an ideologue tied to the left wing of the Democratic Party.  By a gap of 44%-30%, voters believe Obama to have moved away from moderates, a reveral of his standing six weeks ago.  Why?  McClatchy’s analysis concludes that Obama’s economic agenda has begun to worry voters, who see a lot of government growth instead of economic stimulus.

After Scott Rasmussen’s editorial last week, Obama defenders insisted that Rasmussen was an “outlier”.  No longer.

Update (AP): Full results here. Unfortunately, congressional Republicans’ approval rating has also dropped, from 34/51 to 28/51 — with the bulk of it coming from a 12-point decline among Republican voters.