Civil Beat Poll: Bin Laden’s Death Doesn’t Lift Obama’s Hawaii Approval Rating
No matter what happens, it seems residents of Hawaii don’t change their opinion about President Barack Obama.
But that’s not all bad for the president. People here like him and think he’s doing a good job.
While Obama’s approval rating soared nationally with news of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, in Hawaii it has remained constant, at just over 60 percent, according to a new Civil Beat poll.
Sixty-four percent of registered voters in Hawaii approve of Obama’s job performance, the automated telephone survey of 1,014 registered voters in Hawaii found. That figure is essentially unchanged from three previous Civil Beat surveys in the past 12 months. The latest poll was conducted on May 3 and 4 by and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.
“It’s Hawaii. They know him,” said Matt Fitch, executive director of Merriman River Group. “What you see here is what you don’t see elsewhere, that people have made up their mind about him. They know him. He’s very much a local candidate.”
The Civil Beat results are a stark contrast to a national poll that came out just days after the killing of Bin Laden. The found that Obama’s approval rating had jumped from 46 percent to 57 percent in just one month.
While Obama’s ratings in Hawaii have remained constant, the same hasn’t held true nationally. His approval rating was at a high of 68 two years ago, according to the . Last May, it found that Obama had a 47 percent approval rating, with 43 percent disapproval. His low came in October, just before the November election that saw Republicans take control of the House of Representatives. He had a 44 percent approval rating, with an equal percentage unhappy with his job performance that month.
In Hawaii, a year ago Civil Beat found Obama had a 63 percent approval rating. He had the same rating in September and essentially the same in October, at 62, a figure well within the margin of error. The latest number is the highest ever recorded by Civil Beat, but shows no bounce from the dramatic announcement of the killing of the 9/11 mastermind nearly 10 years after that terrible day.
The poll found that Obama’s strength in Hawaii is consistent among races, with Filipinos giving Obama the highest approval ratings, at 76 percent, with just 10 percent disapproving of his job performance. When it comes to gender, the president gets higher marks from women, with 71 percent of women saying they approved of his job performance, and 57 percent of men saying the same thing.
