http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/20/obama-approval-rating-sinks-37-percent/print/Heckuva job, Obama! Americans jeer the president’s performance
By David Sherfinski - The Washington Times - Wednesday, November 20, 2013
President Obama's approval rating has sunk to 37 percent in a new poll released Wednesday — the lowest of his presidency — and his disapproval rate is at 57 percent, a new high for him in CBS News polls.
His approval rating has dropped 9 points since October, according to the CBS News poll.
Approval of his health care overhaul, commonly known as Obamacare, is now at an all-time low of 31 percent and disapproval is at 61 percent, a high for the poll, as his administration scrambles to deal with the fallout from a rocky rollout of major parts of the law on Oct. 1. Forty-six percent say they "disapprove strongly" of the law.
Eighty-eight percent of Republicans disapprove of the law — little changed from last month's 87 percent figure. But approval among independents fell from 38 percent to 27 percent, and approval of Democrats dropped from 74 percent to 58 percent.
Two-thirds say the signup for insurance on government health care exchanges is not going well, and nearly two-thirds are not confident that the federal HealthCare.gov website will be mostly fixed by Dec. 1. The White House said earlier this week that a goal of 80 percent recruitment among all users of the website would be nearly the best result possible.
"I think the way to look at that figure is that of, say, 10 who go on the system, roughly two won't get through the system," said White House press secretary Jay Carney. He said the 20 percent who can't enroll includes people who aren't "comfortable" signing up online or have personal circumstances that are too "complex" to use the website.
Similar to some other polls, however, a majority of Americans do not favor outright repeal of the law. Seven percent think it's working well and should be kept as is, 48 percent think some changes are needed, and 43 percent think it should be repealed.
During the presidential campaign last fall, 60 percent of voters thought of Mr. Obama as honest and trustworthy, compared to 49 percent of Americans in the poll released Wednesday.
Americans hold dim views of both parties in Congress; just 26 percent approve of how congressional Democrats are doing their job and 21 percent say the same for congressional Republicans.
However, the mark for Democrats is down slightly from last month's 31 percent, and Republicans ticked up from 18 percent. Disapproval of Democrats increased from 65 percent to 68 percent and disapproval of Republicans declined from 78 percent to 73 percent.
The CBS News poll of 1,010 adults was conducted from Nov. 15-18 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
