Civil Beat Poll: Obama Still Riding Wave In Hawaii
Mr. President, can you still feel the Aloha spirit?
Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District voters still love you, according to a new Civil Beat poll. The survey of 1,081 likely voters in the Honolulu area, where the president was born and graduated from high school, found that 62.9 percent approve of the president’s performance in office, while 32 percent disapprove.
The president is more personally popular than his policies. Just under half of those surveyed in the automated-telelphone poll conducted May 6 and 7 by Aloha Vote, a subsidiary of Merriman River Group, 49.5 percent, approve of Obama’s policies. The percent who say he’s gone too far is 33.6 and 8.3 percent say he hasn’t gone far enough. The percentage of undecideds on policies is higher, at 8.6 percent, versus 5.1 on his job performance.
“Even as Hawaii is preparing to send a Republican to Congress, they still think very highly of Obama himself,” said Matt Fitch, executive director of the Merriman River Group. Fitch was referring to the poll’s findings, published Monday, that Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou has a 14 percentage point advantage over his two Democratic opponents in the May 22 special election to fill the seat vacated by Neil Abercrombie.
“He’s obviously very popular,” said Seth Rosenthal, Merriman’s director of polling. “If there’s a close race in November, they might want to see if they can get him out there to campaign.”
Of course, his popularity is partially explained by the fact that Hawaii is one of the bluest states in the nation, with a solidly Democratic congressional delegation and state Legislature.
Obama’s numbers in the 1st Congressional District are much higher than his national figures, closer in fact to where they stood nationally when he was inaugurated.
shows him averaging a 48.8 percent job approval for his fifth quarter in office, spanning Jan. 20-April 19. In the week after he was inaugurated, he was at 67 percent.
Obama won Hawaii with 71.5 percent of the vote to John McCain’s 26.4. On Oahu, the totals were 69.5 percent versus 28.6.
The results are most dramatic, as might be expected, when analyzed by party affiliation. Among Democrats, 87.8 percent approve strongly or somewhat of his performance, with 67.6 percent in the strongly approve camp.
Among Republicans, the picture is reversed. The total who disapprove of his job performance is 62.1 percent, with the percentage who disapprove strongly at 45.8. The percentage of Republicans who approve of his performance is 26.8.
Independents more closely reflect the national picture. It’s essentially 50-50, with 30.7 percent approving strongly and 18.8 approving somewhat, for a total of 49.5. On the negative side, 34.1 percent disapprove strongly and 13.9 disapprove somewhat, for a total of 48 percent.
But the feelings for Obama don’t always extend down the ticket. In the 1st Congressional District race, 10.6 percent of voters who approve of Obama personally say they’re going to vote for Djou, the Republican candidate.
“If you add up the numbers of the two Democrats (in the 1st Congressional District race), they don’t hit the same number as the Obama approval rating,” Rosenthal said.
The message of poll to Democrats looking ahead to November: “Get your house in order.”
