Obama Job Approval Ratings: President Losing Support Among Women, Hispanics, Young People

U.S. President Barack Obama is quickly losing support among three groups who helped elect him: women, Hispanics and young people. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week showed support for Obama among women nearing an all-time low.

Virginia Wilson, 60, of Charleston, West Virginia, is one of those women who said she has lost faith in Obama. “I can’t blame it all on him,” she said, but “there was going to be a change, that we would see people coming together, instead of falling apart.”

Kimberly Cole, a 36-year-old mother of three young children in Valencia, California, who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and was a respondent in the poll, said the president’s campaign slogan of “hope and change” doesn’t ring true. “He’s been faced with a lot of challenges, and he’s lost his way,” she said.

Cole was among the 50 percent of women polled who said they disapproved of Obama. Only 44 percent approved of Obama’s job. In 2012, Obama won women over Republican Party nominee Mitt Romney, 55 percent to 44 percent.

Young people are also growing disillusioned with Obama. The president’s approval rating among voters younger than 30 was 43 percent, an 11-point decline from June. In 2012, 60 percent of voters 18 to 29 supported Obama in his 2012 re-election campaign.

Obama’s support among Hispanics is also dropping. The latest poll shows 57 percent approve of the president’s job, while 75 percent said so last year.

African-American voters are the only constituency without a significant drop in support. Obama’s job performance has the approval of 87 percent of African-Americans. In 2012, Obama was re-elected with 93 percent of the black vote in 2012.

The poll, released Tuesday, surveyed 1,001 adults between Sept. 4-7 and has a margin for error of plus or minus 3.5 points.