Voters split on whether Obama deserves another term, poll shows

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Barack Obama isn’t even half way through his term as the nation’s 44th president, but the latest Gallup poll released on Friday shows that registered voters are about evenly divided over whether he deserves another.

According to Gallup, 46% of those surveyed said Obama deserves a second term while 50% said he does not. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points, making the results too close to call.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats are solidly for Obama’s reelection and Republicans are equally partisan in opposing it. Many independents, who were an important bloc captured by Obama in 2008, said the president does not deserve reelection.

Gallup notes that this type of question ‘is not highly predictive this far out from a president’s reelection bid.’ People have plenty of time to change their minds before the 2012 race begins in earnest.

However the findings do follow polls that measure job approval ratings. Obama has been running just under 50% on job approval. The results are also similar to what Gallup found recently when it asked voters whether they would be more likely to vote for Obama or the GOP in 2012.

Those results could spell trouble for Democrats in this midterm election year.

In a spate of campaign-style appearances, Obama has minimized the value of polls and has urged his supporters to stay focused.

‘If we stay true to our principles, if we do what’s right for the American people, then elections will take care of themselves,’ the president said at a recent fundraiser in Florida, almost the same line he has used elsewhere. It is a reminder he likely to repeat in future campaign swings including an upcoming visit to California.

Being in office has made Obama a bit stoic, however. As he noted during his nuclear summit giving advice that could apply to politics as well as policy:

‘It’s going to take time. And progress will be halting. And sometimes we’ll take one step forward and two steps back, and there will be frustrations. And so it’s not going to run on the typical cable news 24/7 news cycle.

‘But if we’re persistent, and we’ve got the right approach, then over time, I think that we can make progress,’ he said.

-- Michael Muskal

Twitter.com/LATimesmuskal