by Ed Morrissey
Three weeks ago, Barack Obama launched a cross-country speaking tour to boost his economic policies, a campaign that included an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The President hoped to build momentum for the fall session and the upcoming budget fight by going over the heads of Congress during their summer recess. Instead, Gallup finds that Obama’s approval ratings on the economy — and practically everything else — sinks the more he campaigns:
Despite President Barack Obama’s renewed focus on the nation’s economy this summer, crisscrossing the country to talk about job creation, he scores worse with Americans on the economy than he did in June. His approval rating on the issue, now 35%, is down seven percentage points, and his ratings on taxes and the federal budget deficit are each down five points. During the same period, his overall approval rating is down three points.
In fact, out of seven issues for which Obama’s job performance was rated in the new poll and in June, only the three economy-related ones fell significantly. These are also his lowest issue approval ratings of the nine total issues measured this month. Notably, these declines somewhat parallel the slide Gallup has seen in Americans’ economic confidence over the same period, although confidence picked up slightly this past week.
Obama’s approval ratings on race relations, terrorism, and education remain positive on balance, with each changing little since Gallup last measured them. His approval ratings on foreign affairs, immigration, and healthcare policy are all moderately negative but little changed.
All of the changes on approval are negative, although some are within the margin of error. His overall approval rating dropped three points since the beginning of June to 44%. The drop exceeds the MOE for three issues, and the biggest drop is the economy, at -7 to 35%, as Gallup’s lead notes. He’s only at 36% on taxes, and only registers 26% approval on the federal budget deficit.
Even on non-economic issues, Obama has little standing. Gallup asked about race relations for the first time in quite a while, and Obama gets a bare majority at 51% — his best subject. He also scores 50% on terrorism, and 49% on education. His approval rating on foreign affairs sunk to 40%, and everything else on the list goes to 39% or worse, including health-care policy as ObamaCare’s rollout continues to be a trainwreck. Gallup’s analysis claims that his healthcare ratings “are largely unruffled” because they only dropped one point, but a 39% approval rating in that area looks more like being consistently ruffled.
The tour came to an end with Obama’s vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, and it looks like that arrived not a moment too soon for the President.
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Ed Morrissey is a columnist for Hot Air.