President Barack Obama pauses after walking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his car outside the White House in Washington, Tuesday, July 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A majority of independent voters are unhappy with the Obama administration and just over half intend to use their vote in November to put a check on the president and the Democratic Congress, according to a Fox News poll.
The poll, released Wednesday, found that if the congressional election were held today Republicans would have a slim 2 percentage-point edge over the Democrats: 42-40 percent. Earlier this month Democrats held a 3-point advantage (41-38 percent). In both cases the advantage is too small to be statistically significant.
Most Democratic voters would vote for their party’s candidate (87 percent) and almost all Republican voters for theirs (90 percent), so the group to watch is independents.
The poll found that these swing voters are more likely to vote for the Republican candidate in their district by a 32-25 percent margin -- with 14 percent saying “other” and another 29 percent undecided.
Moreover, every time the generic vote question has been asked since March, self-identified independent voters have given the edge to the Republican candidate by a range of 6-13 points.
Few independents -- 6 percent -- are "extremely happy" with the Obama administration, while a third (33 percent) are "satisfied, but not extremely happy." Some 40 percent of this critical voting bloc are "disappointed, but not angry" and 21 percent are "angry" with the White House.
Many independents -- 55 percent -- are extremely or somewhat likely to vote for a Republican Congressional candidate this year with the "specific intention of providing a check on Democratic control of Congress and the president."
Most Democrats have positive feelings about the administration. The poll found that 17 percent are "extremely happy," while 65 percent are "satisfied." Fifteen percent said they are "disappointed," while hardly any -- 2 percent -- said they felt "angry."
Nearly one in five self-identified Obama voters in the 2008 election said they feel either disappointed (16 percent) or angry (2 percent).
Overall, more American voters (53 percent) feel negatively (either disappointed or angry) about the administration than feel positive. One voter in five feels "angry" (21 percent), which is more than double the number who feel "extremely happy" (9 percent). A third of voters feel "disappointed" (32 percent). Some 37 percent are "satisfied, but not extremely happy."
The national telephone poll was conducted for Fox News by Opinion Dynamics Corp. among 900 registered voters from June 29 to June 30. For the total sample, the poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Republican Voters Continue to be More Interested in Election
Continuing a several month trend, two-thirds of Republican voters are "extremely" (33 percent) or "very" interested (33 percent) in the midterm elections, while just under half of Democrats feel the same way (24 percent "extremely" and 25 percent "very").
A 59 percent majority of voters who are at least very interested in the elections feel disappointed or angry about the Obama administration. By 51-35 percent, these interested voters would back the Republican candidate in their district if they were heading to the voting booth today.
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