Obama's numbers down even in Hawaii

Barack Obama doesn't need to worry about winning Hawaii next year. He's more popular there than anywhere else in the country and he has huge leads over all of his potential Republican opponents.  But even his native state shows the difficulties Obama's facing right now- his approval numbers are way down from earlier in the year and his margins for reelection against the various GOP candidates don't come close to what he won by in 2008.

Obama's Hawaii approval rating is 56% with 36% of voters disapproving of him. That +20 spread is down 15 points from when we polled the state in March when he was at +35 (64/29.) Obama's numbers with Democrats now are basically identical to what they were earlier in the year. But where he previously had an unusual amount of crossover popularity with Republicans at 27% approval, that's now down to 15%. And he's gone from having very strong numbers with independents at 58/33 to relatively poor ones at 41/45.

For all that Obama's still more popular in Hawaii than he is anywhere else we've polled this year- California, Vermont, and Rhode Island where he's at 53% come the closest, although we haven't polled Illinois.

Mitt Romney comes the closest to Obama in the state but still trails by 27 points at 59-32. Even in a deep blue state like Hawaii you can see the considerable electability difference between Romney and anyone else in the Republican field. Herman Cain and Ron Paul do next best, each trailing by 33, at 63-30 and 61-28 respectively. Rick Perry trails by 35 at 63-28, Michele Bachmann's down 36 at 64-28, and Newt Gingrich has a 37 point deficit at 64-27.

Obama won Hawaii by 45 points in 2008, 72-27, so his numbers are down no matter who his Republican opponent is.

We also looked into the 'birther' issue in Hawaii- 83% of voters there think Obama was born in the United States to only 10% who disagree.  But among Republicans there's still a significant 30% who question the legitimacy of Obama's citizenship compared to 54% who think he was indeed born in the country. Clearly there's a segment of the GOP with whom this theory will probably never die.

Full results here

Comments

[Vita Dicpinigaitis, M.D.]

The "birther" issue is not about birth or citizenship, it's about the constitutional presidential eligibility requirement of natural born citizenship which means citizen born to two citizen parents. The President admits that his father was a British citizen. He has also disrespected his office and the American people in sealing all of his records, playing games with the birth certificate and committing fraud with the two forged documents presented. Documentation for this has been extensive by many forensic experts. When is a presumably credible institution like PPP or WSJ going to fulfill their professional journalistic obligations?

[Alan Snipes]

Why don't you poll some interesting states like Arizona and Georgia, just to think of a couple off the top of my head instead of Hawaii?

[George]

Not much news here, but a Obama blowout winning anything around the 60% range will carry at least Hirano into the Senate. The big difference between now and the last time a Dem had serious economic problems, Jimmy Carter, is that the country has changed. It is no longer Ronald Reagan's America...when he carried Hawaii in 1984. We will never see a return to that America again.

[pbrower2a]

The citizenship of the late father of President Obama is not a valid bar to eligibility of the President. It wouldn't matter if the President's father were a convicted criminal, and idiot, or a drug addict.

[Dustin Ingalls]

"Why don't you poll some interesting states like Arizona and Georgia, just to think of a couple off the top of my head instead of Hawaii?"

We poll the top two states from our poll on this site every week. And how is Georgia more interesting than Hawaii?

[dw]

@Vita Dicpinigaitis:

President Chester Arthur was born to a father who was a British subject.

[Gianni]

IIRC, a few polls in early '08 showed Obama getting around 60% of the vote, and if you don't mind me saying, nearly all polling in Hawaii seems to be better for the GOP than it is in reality.

[Alan Snipes]

Georgia is more interesting than Hawaii because Obama lost Georgia by 52-47 in 2008 and I understand his approvals there are better than many other states right now. Arizona is interesting because McCain carried his home state by a smaller margin than Bush carried Arizona in 2004. Also, Clinton carried it in 1996 so these states could be interesting from the point of view of states that Obama might carry in 2012 that he did not carry in 2008.

[dominic]

Georgia is more interesting because there's a dedicated sect of delusional Democrats (and YES, I am a liberal Democrat) who for some reason think Democrats might win Georgia every single fucking election. It's insane, we never do but every single time these Democrats come out and start wondering, "hey, you think we'll win Georgia this time?". WHAT THE FUCK?????? Is there nothing more important for us to worry about?

[valleyforge]

Chester Arthur was also the subject of a birther-type movement. But it was racist then too.

[Gianni]

Dominic: Georgia is trending blue (unlike many of the former Solid South states, which are continuing their rightward trend), so it's not a matter of if it comes back into play for Democrats, but when.

[NRH]

Georgia is a state with a growing minority population, which is heavily Democratic, and an aging white population, which is heavily Republican. In other words, a typical Southern state, with a high minimum Democratic floor and a low Democratic ceiling. As demography rolls on, both floor and ceiling will rise until winning statewide elections becomes a plausible proposition. Georgia has a large black population, relative to some of its Southern kin, and so comes close to that competitive mark, but has yet to cross it. Give it another eight years or so and probably, but I don't think it's happening this year.

Also, ignore the birther morons. They've latched onto a definition of 'natural born citizen' that's long since been disavowed by the Supreme Court and Congress alike and has never has been used in any American context.