47% of Dems say Obama should get primary challenge

WASHINGTON — Heading into elections Tuesday, Democratic voters are closely divided over whether President Obama should be challenged within the party for a second term in 2012, an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks Poll finds.

The nation at large is similarly divided over whether Obama should be a one-term president.

A real Democratic challenge to Obama seems unlikely at this stage, and his re-election bid is a long way off.

The AP-KN poll found that among all 2008 voters, 51 percent said Obama deserves to be defeated in November 2012 while 47 percent supported his re-election — essentially a tie.

Among Democrats, 47 percent said Obama should be challenged for the 2012 nomination and 51 percent said he should not be opposed. Those favoring a contest include most who backed Hillary Rodham Clinton's unsuccessful faceoff against Obama for the 2008 nomination. The poll did not ask if Democrats would support particular challengers.

With the next presidential election two years away, the public's view of Obama could easily improve if the economy revives or if he outmaneuvers Republicans on Capitol Hill or in the presidential campaign.

"Democrats currently disappointed with Obama will likely be less disappointed if he spends the next two years fighting a GOP Congress" should Republicans do well on Election Day, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political-science professor and polling analyst.

The poll suggests lingering bad feelings from Democrats' bitter primary fight, when he and Clinton — now his secretary of state — roughly split the popular vote.

Some of the findings:

• Nearly 3 in 10, or 29 percent, of Democrats who said during the spring of 2008 that they were backing Obama for the Democratic nomination now say they want him to be challenged in 2012. Seven in 10 want him renominated.

• Sixty-one percent of Democrats who said in spring 2008 that they were backing Clinton now say Obama should face an opponent for the party's nomination.

• More than 8 in 10 overall who on Election Day 2008 said they'd voted for Obama want to re-elect him, while 1 in 7 say he should be defeated.

• More than 1 in 4 who said in October 2008 that Obama understands the problems of ordinary Americans now say he doesn't. The same is true for those who said he is innovative, cares about people like them and shares their values.

• Of those who said right after the 2008 election that they had a favorable opinion of Obama, nearly one-quarter now view him negatively.

"Nobody wants to work with this guy," said Steven Fagin, 45, of Cincinnati. A Democrat and 2008 Obama voter, he cited deep divisions between Democrats and Republicans. "We're never going to get anything done."

The survey found that those likeliest to oppose Obama's re-election include men, older people, those without college degrees and whites. Those groups mostly supported his 2008 Republican opponent, John McCain. Democrats saying Obama should face a primary challenge tend to be less educated, less liberal and likelier to have been 2008 Clinton backers.

Three in four Democrats want Obama re-elected while nearly 9 in 10 Republicans oppose it. Independents lean slightly against Obama, 46 percent to 36 percent.

At this stage two years before their re-elections, Presidents Clinton and Reagan had approval ratings that were lower than Obama's now, according to the Gallup Poll; both men won a second term. The ratings for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Carter were better than Obama's; both lost.

The 1,254 randomly chosen people in the survey are from a group that was polled 11 times during the 2008 campaign by AP, Knowledge Networks and Yahoo News. The AP-Knowledge Networks Poll was conducted from Sept. 17 to Oct. 7. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. It is plus or minus 6.5 percentage points for the 571 Democrats, and 5.3 percentage points for the 852 people who said on Election Day 2008 that they had voted.