President Obama faces a daunting task trying to reclaim the nation’s economically troubled Midwest — a region he won in 2008 and is trying to woo back now with a health care message.
The Midwest has some of the nation’s worst employment rates, and polls show most of the region’s states that backed Obama are questioning his leadership.
Visiting Iowa City, Obama reminded supporters that he kept a promise he made three years ago in the same city, to reform the nation’s health care system.
“This is the state that first believed in our campaign,” said Obama, whose surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses gave his candidacy significant early momentum.
A recent Research 2000 Iowa poll, however, found just 49 percent of Iowans approve of the job Obama is doing, to 46 percent who disapprove. Those results play out across much of the Midwest, where his approval ratings either track national averages or dip below.
“As in other places, Republicans are feeling enthused, they feel this is their year,” said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines.
Obama still has strong support among Iowa Democrats, Goldford said. “But he has to go back and reclaim the independents,” who supported him in 2008 but are now split over his job performance and particularly over his handling of the economy, he added.
Obama has signaled he plans to campaign hard on his health care program, in particular convincing Americans that the plan his party passed will help them right away.
But that strategy puts the president at odds with public opinion, delivering a seemingly off-message pitch to an electorate that polls show was either split or opposed to his reform plan, and rates the economy and jobs as top electoral issues.
Nowhere does that awkward dynamic play out more than in Midwestern states — struggling with high unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, and devastated auto and other industries.
Michigan, with a 14.9 percent unemployment rate higher than the national rate of 10.4 percent, is a potential trouble spot for Obama as he prepares to campaign for Democrats in the midterm elections. A recent Michigan Research Group poll found 50 percent of the state’s voters disapprove of the job he’s doing, to 47 percent who approve.
Obama trounced Sen. John McCain of Arizona in Wisconsin in 2008, but just 46 percent of voters in a recent Public Policy Polling survey of the state said they approve of him now, to 48 percent who disapprove.
It’s a similar story in Ohio, where 40 percent told Public Policy they approve of the job Obama is doing, to 53 percent who said they disapprove. The unemployment rate in Ohio is 11.8 percent.
Obama squeaked out a narrow 2008 win over McCain in Indiana, but Public Policy found just 39 percent of the state’s voters approve of his work as president, while 60 percent said they disapprove.
One state where Obama still performs well in the polls is his political home state of Illinois, where voters give him a 56 percent job approval rating, according to Rasmussen Reports. Obama won his home state with 62 percent of the vote.
