ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Advantage on Aiding the Middle Class Helps Keep Obama’s Approval Afloat
July 19, 2011 12:25 PM
Most Americans think the Republicans in Congress have got Wall Street and large corporations’ backs, while President Obama prevails on protecting the middle class and small businesses: an edge that helps explain his better-than-dismal job approval in the teeth of a terrible economy.
By a wide 59-26 percent, the public sees congressional Republicans as more concerned than Obama with protecting the economic interests of Wall Street financial institutions, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds. Americans even more broadly, by 67-24 percent, put the GOP ahead when it comes to looking out for the interests of large business corporations.
The tables turn – albeit with much narrower margins – on other measures. Obama leads the GOP by 18 points in looking out for middle-class Americans, 53-35 percent. He also has a 10-point advantage, 47-37 percent, as being more concerned with the economic interests of “you and your family.” And he leads by 9 points, 48-39 percent, on protecting small businesses.
The president’s advantage on small businesses is particularly notable, given the GOP’s efforts to portray his policies as damaging to small-business job creation. While Republicans are fully aboard, independents, the linchpin of national politics, say by 46-39 percent that Obama cares more than GOP leaders about the economic interests of small businesses, a fairly close call but with a tilt in the president’s direction.
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http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/07/abc-news-poll-advantage-on-aiding-the-middle-class-helps-keep-obamas-approval-afloat.html