A new Washington Post-ABC News poll is grim, grim news for President Obama and his administration. The poll finds that 57% of the nation now opposes Obamacare, the president’s signature law.
That result lines up well with Rasmussen’s results on Monday, which found 58% opposition for Obamacare.
Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 42% and he is in freefall, having lost 13 points on job approval this year and six points just in the last month. Claiming ignorance on the disastrous rollout of Healthcare.gov can’t have helped him, but it was the only defense he could plausibly mount after the website debuted and turned out to be a massively expensive festival of glitches.
The disastrous rollout and Obama’s excuse for it combine to give him a positive rating on management from just 41% of Americans; 56% rate him a poor manager.
He is underwater on personal favorability, 52% negative to 46% positive.
Last week, White House spokesman Jay Carney openly mimicked and mocked ABC reporter Jonathan Karl during a press briefing. Karl gets some revenge today.
Asked who they would vote for if they could have a mulligan on the 2012 election, 49% say Romney, 45% Obama in ABC/WashPost poll
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) November 19, 2013
The Post picks up some of the poll’s other findings. Obama’s handling of his signature law meets 63% disapproval. By almost 2 to 1, Americans reject Obamacare’s individual mandate and more than 70% want it delayed, but more than 60% support the employer mandate. Just wait until the delayed employer mandate costs a majority of Americans our healthcare. Obama’s handling of the two mandates is out of sync with the poll’s findings, as he delayed the employer mandate but is enforcing the individual mandate.
Will Obamacare be repealed? Well, twice as many Americans say that a politician’s support for the law makes them likely to oppose that politician, as say such support makes them likely to support that politician. That gap is widening.
For Obama, the debacle has killed his personal leadership ratings.
On three measures of leadership and empathy that have been tested repeatedly in Post-ABC polls, Obama now is underwater on all three for the first time. Half or more now say he is not a strong leader, does not understand the problems of “people like you,” and is not honest and trustworthy. Perceptions of the president as a strong leader have dropped 15 points since January, and over the past year the percentage of registered voters who say he is not honest and trustworthy has increased 12 points.
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