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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Obama Has Driven his Party into the Ditch

Swelling economic discontent has pushed dissatisfaction with the federal government to its highest level in 18 years, with the same forces that put Barack Obama on the road to the presidency two years ago now threatening to undo his party's control of Congress.

Two months before the 2010 midterm elections, like voters now favor the Republican over the Democratic candidate in their congressional district by 53-40 percent, the widest GOP margin on record in ABC News/Washington Post polls since 1981.

Beneath that result: Broad rejection of the status quo.

Consider:

• Ninety-two percent of Americans say the economy's in bad shape. A mere 24 percent believe it's improving. And for the first time numerically more say Obama's economic program has made the economy worse, 33 percent, than improved it, 30 percent. Views that he's helped the economy have dropped by 9 points since spring.

• A majority, 52 percent, now disapproves of the way Obama is handling his job overall, another first in ABC/Post polls. Intensity increasingly is against him, with those who disapprove "strongly" outnumbering strong approvers by 14 points. A record 57 percent rate him negatively on handling the economy, "strongly" so by an even wider margin, 2-1.

• Seventy-eight percent now describe themselves as dissatisfied with the way the federal government is working, up 14 points just since July to the most since October 1992. That includes 25 percent who are "angry," tying the record. Among likely voters, 30 percent are angry – and they favor Republican candidates by a vast 47-point margin. - ABC News Story

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