Three in Five Adults Give President-Elect Obama Positive Marks for Transition Handling

ROCHESTER, N.Y.-(Business Wire)-January 15, 2009 - As Barack Obama’s readies his inauguration speech for next week, three in five adults (60%) give the job he has done so far in choosing his Cabinet and preparing to be president positive ratings. However, three in ten Americans (29%), and almost six in ten Republicans (58%), give him negative ratings and one in ten (10%) are not sure. In comparison, as George W. Bush was preparing to take office in January of 2001, just half of Americans (49%) gave the job he had done choosing Cabinet officials and preparing to be president a positive rating, while 39% gave it a negative one.

Additionally, these are some of the findings of The Harris Poll®, a new nationwide survey of 1,019 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone between January 7 and 11, 2009 by Harris Interactive^®:

While Democrats give President-elect Obama high marks for the transition (82% positive), not surprisingly only 30% of Republicans do the same;
Over four in five African Americans (85%) also give the President-elect positive ratings on the transition as do over two-thirds of Hispanics (69%) and just over half (55%) of Whites;
Looking at what the new President will have to deal with, just one in five Americans (19%) think things in the country are going in the right direction while 72% believe things are going off on the wrong track. One bright spot for the new administration is that this is up from October, right before the Election when just 11% of Americans thought the country was moving in the right direction;
The reasons for things in the country not moving in the right direction is clear and this is one of the more pressing things for the Obama Administration. Three in five Americans (59%) think the economy is one of the two most important issues for the government to address. Also, one in five adults (20%) say employment is one of the most important issues, a sharp rise from the 5% who named this issue in October. In fact, over the past twelve years, this is the highest number that have said employment is a most important issue; and,
Health care continues to be a concern to Americans (16% cite it as a most important issue) but it is definitely much further down than the economy. Also, 15% of Americans say the war is a most important issue to address while 6% say budget and government spending is a most important issue.

So What?

Barack Obama continues to ride a swell of positive feeling into the White House, but the fact that the number of people who give him high marks is not higher, should be slightly concerning to the new Administration. Even after a contentious recount, Supreme Court decisions and an election that was essentially tied, half of Americans still gave George W. Bush high marks as he prepared to take the oath of office in 2001. Now many other issues have caused people to not be as upbeat at this time of change as they might have been.

One thing is that, even after all the reaching out to Republicans and Conservatives that the President-elect has done, partisanship is alive and well. Another is that the issues which are on the minds of Americans have moved attitudes greatly. During the early days of the campaign, especially during the primaries, much was made about what would be done with the troops in Iraq. Now, concerns about paying bills, keeping or finding a job, not losing retirement funds, shrinking investments, and other economic concerns is definitely weighing on the minds of the American public. And, it is these concerns that Barack Obama is supposed to address quickly after taking the oath of office. If people thought their economic worries might be diminishing in the near future, the odds are that President-elect Obama would be getting even higher marks for his transition.

Methodology

The Harris Poll^® was conducted by telephone within the United States between January 7 and 11, 2009 among a nationwide cross section of 1,019 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region, number of adults in the household, size of place (urbanicity) and number of phone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Full data tables and methodology are available at www.harrisinteractive.com

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

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About Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive is a global leader in custom market research. With a long and rich history in multimodal research, powered by our science and technology, we assist clients in achieving business results. Harris Interactive serves clients globally through our North American, European and Asian offices and a network of independent market research firms. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com

Harris Interactive Inc. 01/09

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