Poll: Young People Back Obama, Disapprove of His Major Policies

An excerpt from a post written by Ari Mebler and published on The Nation's blog today:

A new Harvard poll finds that President Obama is holding on to his strongest supporters, voters under 30, though they overwhelmingly oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan.

About 58 percent of young voters approve of Obama's job performance, while his approval among all voters recently dipped below 50 percent for the first time. About 66 percent of young voters oppose a build-up in Afghanistan, though this survey was in the field before the President's West Point speech.

In fact, the most striking part of the new poll is how young voters disapprove of Obama on issues across the board, yet still support his overall job performance. A briefing from Harvard's Institute of Politics (IOP) crunches the numbers:

The IOP's fall poll indicates 18-29 year-olds are now in line with the general population: a majority of young adults approve of [Obama] generally but disapprove of his handling of major issues asked about in the poll... A majority of 18-29 year-olds also disapprove of his handling of every major issue asked about:

Afghanistan (55% disapprove, 41% approve)
health care (52% disapprove, 44% approve)
the economy (52% disapprove, 44% approve)
Iran (53% disapprove, 42% approve)
and the federal budget deficit (58% disapprove, 38% approve)

A detailed report on the poll’s findings is available on Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP) (located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government) homepage at www.iop.harvard.edu.