Americans’ confidence in Obama plummets to new low, poll shows

SHARE Americans’ confidence in Obama plummets to new low, poll shows

There’s little good news for President Barack Obama or the rest of U.S. government, according to a new Gallup poll.

When asked about their confidence in the president, only 29 percent said they had confidence in Obama in his sixth year. That’s down 7 percent from last year, and is a 22 percentage point drop from his first year in office. It’s also lower than George W. Bush’s rating in his sixth year (33 percent) and Bill Clinton (53 percent). It was during Clinton’s sixth year in office that he was stuck deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

From Gallup:

Gallup began asking regularly about the presidency in March 1991, when George H.W. Bush was in office. At that time, 72% of Americans had confidence in the presidency — the highest confidence rating the institution has received. This was immediately following his leadership in the successful first Persian Gulf War, and at a time when his job approval rating hit the then all-time high of 89%. But the elder Bush also saw the largest drop in confidence for the institution that same year, when it fell to a still relatively high 50% in October 1991.

But Obama’s not alone. There’s little confidence in the other branches of government. Only 30 percent of confidence in the Supreme Court, while Congress has dropped into the single digits (7 percent).

Here’s a detailed breakdown of how confidence in the three branches of government has dropped since 2012. While Congress comes in last, the president has lost the most ground.

The Latest
The man was shot in the left eye area in the 5700 block of South Christiana Avenue on the city’s Southwest Side.
Most women who seek abortions are women of color, especially Black women. Restricting access to mifepristone, as a case now before the Supreme Court seeks to do, would worsen racial health disparities.
The Bears have spent months studying the draft. They’ll spend the next one plotting what could happen.
Woman is getting anxious about how often she has to host her husband’s hunting buddy and his wife, who don’t contribute at all to mealtimes.
He launched a campaign against a proposed neo-Nazis march at a time the suburb was home to many Holocaust survivors. His rabbi at Skokie Central Congregation urged Jews to ignore the Nazis. “I jumped up and said, ‘No, Rabbi. We will not stay home and close the windows.’ ”