WASHINGTON – The fate of President Barack Obama’s second term is emerging as a battle between improving news about the economy and souring views of his signature health-care law.
A year-end USA TODAY/Pew Research Center poll chronicles what a drag the Affordable Care Act has become on Obama’s reputation, helping to drive down his standing as a trustworthy leader who can get things done to the lowest levels of his presidency as disapproval of the health-care law hits a new high.
In one of the few bright spots for the president in the survey, approval of his handling of the economy has surged by 11 percentage points in a month, albeit to an anemic 42 percent. The improvement presumably reflects reports that the nation’s jobless rate has declined, economic growth has picked up and the stock market has soared.
The slide in Obama’s overall job approval rating in the past five Pew polls has been stemmed. It’s now at 45 percent approve to 49 percent disapprove rate – not great, but better than before.
The question facing Obama as he prepares for his final three years in office: Can he claim enough credit for an improving economy to offset the damage done by – ironically – the achievement to which he devoted much of his first term?
Despite some economic optimism, Americans aren’t confident good times have arrived. Four in 10 say their personal financial situations are good or excellent; another four in 10 call them “only fair.” Just 15 percent rate economic conditions nationwide as good or excellent, but the percentage who rate them as poor has dropped by 12 points since early October.
Obama continues to be more trusted to do the right thing when it comes to dealing with the economy than Republican congressional leaders: 47 percent have a great deal or fair amount of faith in the president, compared with 36 percent who say that of GOP leaders.
The poll of 2,001 adults, taken Dec. 3 through Sunday, has a margin of error of +/–3 points.
The survey’s dominant finding is how much the fumbled rollout of the health-care law this fall has scarred fundamental elements of the president’s reputation, including among some of the demographic groups that were most enthusiastic about re-electing him a year ago. Among the most disenchanted are young people.
Americans split on how to judge Obama’s presidency: 46 percent call it a success; 48 percent call it a failure.
Second-term stumbles
Obama is hardly the first president to stumble in his second term. Ronald Reagan became enmeshed in the Iran-contra scandal, and Bill Clinton was impeached in the Monica Lewinsky affair. But both Reagan and Clinton had higher approval ratings than Obama does at this point in their second terms, as did Dwight Eisenhower.
The modern predecessor Obama tracks most closely in terms of approval is George W. Bush, whose second term was caught in rising opposition to the Iraq war and, at its end, by the financial meltdown that led to the Great Recession.
History’s patterns aren’t encouraging for Obama. Since presidential approval started being measured on a consistent basis in the 1940s, only two of the previous second-term presidents have seen their approval drop below 50 percent in the first several months after re-election – Bush and Richard Nixon – and both had second terms that were considered unsuccessful.
In the USA TODAY poll, Americans split 47 percent to 47 percent when asked if the Obama administration deliberately misled Americans about whether it could keep its plans. For Bush at this point in his second term, 53 percent said he had deliberately misled Americans about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; 46 percent said he hadn’t.
No signs of a rally
In the poll, 54 percent disapprove of the health-care law, 41 percent approve – the worst rating for the Affordable Care Act since it was enacted three and a half years ago. Some of the key groups that supporters hoped would rally behind the law aren’t doing so, at least not yet. Forty-five percent of those without insurance approve of the law. Among those with incomes less than $30,000 a year, the group most likely to qualify for federal subsidies, 43 percent approve. Forty-one percent of those younger than 30 and 44 percent of women approve.
What’s more, Americans are inclined to view the problems the law has faced this fall as long-term problems that show fundamental flaws (50 percent) rather than short-term problems that can be resolved (44 percent).
Those surveyed see the complexity of the health-insurance system as a major reason for the problems. By 2 to 1, they blame flaws in the health-care law itself and poor management by the Obama administration. Half also cite politicians who oppose the law and have tried to undermine it.
Since September, just before the HealthCare.gov website opened to a cascade of problems, assessments of the law’s impact on the country as a whole have worsened. By 49 percent to 23 percent, those surveyed call the overall impact of the law mostly negative rather than positive.
Whatever the impact of the law on Americans generally, its impact on Obama personally has been unmistakably damaging.
Fifty-one percent of Americans say Obama is not a good manager. He receives the lowest ratings of his presidency on being able to get things done (43 percent say he can, down 14 points since the beginning of the year) and for being trustworthy (52 percent, down 14 points).
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