A new poll is flashing a major warning sign for President Obama in a state that could prove critical to his 2012 re-election hopes.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday found that Florida voters now disapprove of the job Mr. Obama is doing by a 52 percent to 44 percent margin, with 51 percent of Floridians saying the president does not deserve a second term.
In what Quinnipiac pollsters term a “trifecta,” the survey of 1,499 Sunshine State voters also found that Mr. Obama claims only a slight 3 percentage point lead (41 percent to 38 percent) over an unnamed “generic” Republican opponent. Mr. Obama carried Florida in 2008 with 51 percent of the vote to 48.4 percent for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
In a previous poll in February, Mr. Obama’s job approval rating in the state was more mixed, with 47 percent approving and 49 percent disapproving of the job he is doing as president.
The poor result came despite the fact that some 70 percent of Floridians polled said they like Mr. Obama personally.
With Mr. Obama formally declaring his candidacy earlier this week, “one can expect that his team will be focusing on Florida, one of the nation’s pre-eminent swing states and one that the president carried in 2008,” said Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown. “He has some work to do.”
The poll also found that Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, also on the ballot in 2012, is in better shape politically, with a 47 percent approval rating versus a 26 percent disapproval rating. The poll also found that state voters favor repeal of Mr. Obama’s signature health care law by a 49 percent to 41 percent margin.
The poll was conducted from March 29 to April 4, with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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