Public Opinion Strategies

For quite some time, Republican pollsters have been making the point to their clients: don’t confuse the attitudes of base and swing voters toward the President.  Base GOP voters do not like Obama’s policies, and  they dislike him personally (some more vehemently than others).  However, we had consistently seen in our polls and focus groups that [...] Read more

This post was written by Glen Bolger and Jim Hobart
 Last week, following the killing of Osama Bin Laden, we looked at the average job approval bump for Presidents following major military and/or national security events. Not including the post 9/11 response, the average Presidential approval bump was 13% for an average of 22 weeks. Eleven [...] Read more

Given two points of view about the President’s economic policies, voters in the key 60 Democratic districts overwhelmingly say that those policies are not working.
The survey was conducted for National Public Radio by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQR) and Public Opinion Strategies in 70 swing districts – 30 Tier One Democratic-held districts, 30 Tier Two [...] Read more

(This post was written by Glen Bolger and Jim Hobart.)
As the economy remains in turmoil, evidenced by a weakening dollar and unemployment continuing to move toward 10%, the question many Republicans ask is when blame for the poor economy will be shifted from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. However, this is the wrong [...] Read more

This is not a polling analysis.  Instead, I thought it important to share two key strategic message points on the blog.
The first is, there has been a move afoot among Democrats and some in the media to claim that the economy has turned around.  And, of course, they point to select stats to make their [...] Read more

New national survey data released today by Public Opinion Strategies shows the country’s opinion of President Obama’s health care plan is virtually the same as that measured for President Clinton’s plan in 1994.
“This data is highly problematic for the President and clearly demonstrates the struggle President Obama faces as he tries to sell his health [...] Read more

Marriage.  Marriage is what brings us together today.  Most of the analyses looking at politics today focus on either the gender gap, or the generation gap, or the huge differences between base partisans.  However, one of the more enduring and important gaps is the marriage/single gap.
The 2008 exit polls showed the gap.  The 66% of [...] Read more

The recent NPR survey conducted jointly between POS and GQR underscores the biggest change in the President’s fortunes in the first six months of the Obama Administration.  The tide of intensity of public opinion is now moving solidly against Barack Obama — both politically and on policy.
(This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of NPR or GQR).
While [...] Read more

For a President that the media has both compared to God, and worshiped like one, Barack Obama has fallen on some tough times.  Not horrendous times, but he’s not exactly walking on water any more.  The latest poll conducted by GQR and POS highlights some of the public opinion challenges that have slowed Obama’s direct [...] Read more

 This article was co-written by Jim Hobart and Glen Bolger.
As President Obama uses his two favorite Presidential toys, the Teleprompter and the bully pulpit, to push his health care plan, public poll after public poll continues to show his numbers dropping across the board. While his job approval remains comfortably over 50%, (55.9% according to [...] Read more