April 22, 2009 12:07 AM UTC

New Obama/Udall Poll Questionable, But...

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• by: Colorado Pols

From Politics West:

Favorability ratings for President Barack Obama and Sen. Mark Udall in Colorado have fallen beneath 50 percent in a new poll out this morning.

A survey from Raleigh, N.C.-based Public Policy Polling found 49 percent of Colorado voters approved of Obama’s performance, compared to 41 percent who dissented. Udall found support from 41 percent of respondents, with 46 percent disapproving of his first three months in the U.S. Senate.

While support for both Obama and Udall is strong among those who identified as Democrats, the poll found they are losing support of unaffiliated voters — a key to both men’s victories in the state in November.

“Some of the voters in the middle who cast votes for Barack Obama and Mark Udall last fall aren’t giving them the best of reviews for their work so far,” Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling, said in a release. “Getting those folks back in their corner is going to be very important moving forward.”

The automated telephone poll of 1,050 Colorado voters was conducted April 17th -19 and has a margin of error of 3 percent…

A couple of methodology notes: as an automated telephone poll, this was likely to have a rather high non-response or “hang up” rate–and it’s also impossible for pollsters to know for sure who was really responding. In terms of “self-identification,” 38% of respondents identified as “Republican,” compared to 26% “Independent” and 36% “Democrat.” Obviously, this isn’t reflective of actual voter breakdown in Colorado–note that the pollsters will likely agree with this assessment, it’s what you get with this kind of poll.

With all that in mind, what does this poll say? For one thing, it indicates more Republicans approve of Obama’s performance so far than Democrats disapprove, which means that the partisan rank-closing so eagerly sought by Republicans since the election is not quite complete. Note this doesn’t appear to be the case for Mark Udall, who caught more heat from fellow Democrats than Obama–a sign that “Conservadem” friendly fire is having an impact? Possibly, but it will take more than one methodologically-flimsy poll to know for sure.

The bottom line for this poll is that it’s early, probably the least-accurate scientific polling method used today, and as a result shouldn’t be taken as gospel–but it reflects something entirely predictable going into Obama’s first midterm. That’s reason enough for Democrats to consider these results carefully, even though we’re guessing a large percentage of respondents couldn’t even name Sen. Udall without prompting.