President Obama losing some liberal support

While his overall approval rating has remained about the same, President Obama’s support among liberal Democrats and independents has slipped to a new low in recent weeks, according to a Gallup tracking poll released Thursday.

The poll shows that support among liberals, part of Obama’s core group of backers, has dipped to 79%. A week before the midterm election, Obama stood at 88% approval with those who called themselves liberals.

According to Gallup, Obama’s standing with liberals has averaged 89% since he took office. It fell from 88% to 83% in the first weeks of November, when Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and increased their numbers in the Senate.

The biggest blow to Obama’s liberal standing was his negotiations this month with Republicans that led to a temporary agreement to continue George W. Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels, despite longstanding opposition by Democrats who wanted to limit the extension to just the middle class. Obama also had argued against giving those earning more than $250,000 a year an extension of their tax cut but relented to reach a compromise with the GOP.

The extension of tax cuts was coupled with a continuation of jobless benefits for 13 months, giving liberals something they sought. Also included in the agreement was a cut in payroll taxes, from 6.2% to 4.2% for one year, and an estate tax that liberals considered too generous to the rich.

Obama countered liberal objections to the bipartisan package, saying he could not afford a fight for a symbolic victory that could jeopardize the economic recovery.

He defended the compromise as necessary to protect the middle class, whose tax cuts would expire at the end of the year.

The president’s standing among liberals had been falling even before the compromise on economic issues and the extension of tax cuts. Liberals in the House have complained that Obama was unwilling to fight Republicans on issues that mattered to them.

Obama’s overall approval rating has been relatively stable, ranging between 44% and 46% since the midterm election. His drop in support among liberal Democrats has been offset by a slight improvement with other ideological groups. Obama seemed to pivot to the right after the large election losses and in preparation for the 2012 election.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 3,089 adults conducted Dec. 6-12 as part of Gallup daily tracking. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Included in the survey were about 500 interviews with Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who described their political views as liberal, the polling group said.

michael.muskal@latimes.com