Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden have publicly acknowledged that the midterms will turn disastrous if voters make it a referendum on their performance thus far, especially on the economy.  Democrats have both spent most of their time in the last few weeks attempting to avoid that by creating Republican boogeymen in order to distract voters from imposing accountability for Obamanomics: John Boehner, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, and even Dick Cheney keep popping up in their rhetoric, even though only one of these is actually running for office, and that in just one Congressional district in Ohio.  A new Fox poll shows the reason why, which is that their positive support is mired in the 30s:

With the balance of power in Congress at stake, many voters plan to register dissatisfaction with a Democratic-controlled White House – making the midterm elections a referendum on President Obama.

A Fox News poll released Thursday finds that 41 percent will use their vote this year to express opposition to Obama’s policies, compared to 34 percent who describe their vote as expressing support. The message is even clearer among the swing group of independent voters: by an 11 percentage-point margin, independents will cast their ballot to express opposition (41 percent) rather than support (30 percent) for Obama.

That’s not surprising given the lack of support for some of the administration’s policies. More voters favor rather than oppose repealing the new health care law (46-42 percent). That includes 24 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of independents who want the law repealed.

And by a wide 54-36 percent margin, voters favor legislation stopping the government from spending the hundreds of billions of dollars of unspent stimulus money.

While a majority says that the Tea Party won’t have anything to do with their voting decision, 70% agree with the Tea Party’s “main issues.”  That indicates a big wave coming on Election Day, regardless of what inspired it. Also inspiring it will be Obama’s unpopularity.  Among registered voters, with a D+4 sample advantage, Obama gets a 42/49, equaling Fox’s low for approval during Obama’s presidency.  Among independents, it’s far worse, at 35/56.

Incidentally, it’s worth pointing out that this poll oversamples Democrats at 39.3% and undersamples independents at 19.4%.  Republicans come in slightly oversampled at 35.7%.  Independents make up more than 19% of the electorate, and their disdain for Democrats gets a bit lost in this composition.  On the generic ballot question, the GOP prevails 44/38, but among independents it’s 37/22, remarkably low for the party in power, especially after winning independents in the last two cycles.

The Pledge has had at least a mildly favorable effect, too.  Only 47% of registered voters have at least some familiarity with it, but among those, 46% have a favorable impression of it, as opposed to 35% unfavorable.  Interestingly, only 58% of Democrats find it objectionable, with 23% feeling favorable towards it.  Independents view it positively 47/32.  It seems that the pledge has had its intended impact, which was to show that the GOP does have ideas about governance and intend to put them to use if given the chance.

That helps make this midterm a referendum on the present, and not the past — and clearly that is what we are about to get.