Obama’s Decline Continues

Today’s Rasmussen survey is the first one in which all polling was done after President Obama’s prime-time press conference on health care. That press conference, and Obama’s blundering into the Gates arrest controversy, have driven the President’s “approval index”–the difference between those who strongly approve of his performance and those who strongly disapprove–to an all-time low of -11:

Since Wednesday, the percentage who strongly disapprove has jumped from 35 to 40. Overall, likely voters disapprove of the President’s performance by 50-49.
No doubt those findings are driven in part by the fact that only 26% of respondents rate the President’s answer to the question about Gates and Officer Crowley “excellent” or “good,” while 46% rated it “poor.” No doubt it was findings like this one that caused Obama to call Officer Crowley and make a surprise appearance at Robert Gibbs’s press briefing to try to stop the bleeding.
Thus, when Democrats head back to their districts for the August recess, they will be interacting with voters, the largest bloc of whom strongly disapprove of what President Obama is trying to get them to do. That can only be a sobering thought for those Democrats who do not hold safe seats.