There's been a lot of gloating from Republicans this year that Barack Obama is losing the center, but is that true? Not so much. Obama's approval rating with moderates now is actually higher than the percentage of the vote he got from them in 2008. Right now 64% approve of him and 30% disapprove, while he received 60% of the moderate vote in the election to 39% who voted for John McCain.
Obama's standing with liberals is pretty much unchanged from November 2008 as well. They voted for him by an 89/10 margin and they now approve of him by an 87/10 margin.
The entire drop in Obama's current approval numbers relative to his ballot box performance has come with conservatives. While he actually got 20% of their votes last time, his approval rating with them is now 14%.
That's no big surprise, given that Obama has pushed hard for progressive legislation. It brings up one of those classic conundrums- Obama could have pursued a more limited agenda and had a better chance of keeping those folks happy with him or he could do it all at the risk of turning those conservative voters off. The net result is that while his standing certainly isn't as good as it was a year and a half ago, it's not bad at all for a President given the rabidly anti-politician mood much of the country is in.
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