Poll: Public was sympathetic to Palin last week, but not after speech

So with a strong majority of Americans thinking that Palin had no responsibility for the shootings and almost half of them thinking the media mistreats her, she was in a more sympathetic position with voters across the country last week than she had found herself in a long time. And then she made the video…

Most Americans familiar with Palin’s video response to the Arizona shootings think it was inappropriate- that’s where 40% of voters stand to 33% who were not familiar with her response and 27% who thought it was fine. Even among Republicans only 41% thought that what she did was proper- Democrats (60%) are much more unified in their feeling that it was not. Independents split toward thinking the video was inappropriate as well by a 42/28 margin.

Where does Palin stand now? In our monthly 2012 Presidential poll, which we’ll release later this week, she trails Barack Obama by 17 points. That’s the largest deficit we’ve found for her since May of 2009.