Poll: Obama approval among business owners drops

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

(CBS News) As President Obama's opponents continue to put him on the defensive over remarks they say were critical of small business owners, a new poll, taken before these specific attacks began, shows the president's support among business owners is on the decline.

A Gallup poll of the president's job approval by occupation released Thursday shows that only 35 percent of people who characterize themselves as business owners approve of the president in the second quarter of 2012, down 6 points from the first quarter of this year. That's second from the bottom, with farmers, fishers and forestry workers as the least approving of the president at 34 percent.

Although Gallup's survey was conducted between April and June and does not consider the current debate over the president's latest comments, the poll does include the period when Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee and the president's attacks on Romney's business experience intensified.

The findings are also significant as Romney and Republicans in Congress paint the president's economic policies as harmful to small businesses.

Although business owners have an increasingly negative view of Mr. Obama, almost every other category of worker improved their view from last quarter. Professional workers and office workers were the most approving, with 52 and 51 percent approval respectively.

The president's approval ratings have slightly improved overall, with 47 percent of the more than 25,000 people surveyed approving of the president while 47 percent disapprove. Those are better numbers for Mr. Obama than the 45 percent approval, 48 percent approval he received in the poll last quarter.

[hillzhaveays]

From the Poll:
If business owners become more positive about Obama and his plans for the economy, that could potentially boost his approval ratings and broader U.S. economic confidence closer to the levels necessary for him to be well positioned for re-election. Conversely, further deterioration in his approval rating among business owners could certainly add to the perception that Obama is not doing enough to bolster small businesses in the country.
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The data for this poll predates O's comment re: "you didn't build that"

Anyone want to wager a guess at what his approval rating is NOW with business owners? LMAO!!!

[realist2O1O]

If only 65% of those who consider themselves business owners disapprove of the president's policy, that leaves a large number of others (the other 35% and those who do not consider themselves business owners) who approve of the president's agenda. There are only 4.92 million small businesses, thus small business owners, in the US (March 2010 census data). There are many more voters who will vote for the president.

[RollotheNorman]

" by Juliatime1 July 26, 2012 5:15 PM EDT
Why is Romney winning both at Gallop and Rasmussen then?"

First polls mean next to nothing this far from November.

Second, both Gallup and Rassmussen have shown RepubliCON bias consistantly. Decades in the case of Gallup.

[hillzhaveays]

by retmw1 July 26, 2012 4:29 PM EDT
smokey

So what would those busineess's do without workers? Whose going to produce they're products? I guess you on the right think those business owners can produce they're products all by themselves.
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retm, there will always be workers, the owners don't need to produce everything if they don't want to.

What they do is just hire the person standing right behind you - they're standing 10 deep these days you know. Or if it's a job I could train a monkey to do, they just find a cheaper monkey who isn't such a complaining self-entitled loser, who will just come to work and do their job.

See, it's easy.

[hillzhaveays]

I guess some folks do not know that there are over 153 millions workers in this country.

I'll tell you what, we'll let Romney have the business owners and Paris Hilton vote and Obama will take the American worker's vote.
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Those workers aren't as stupid as the Lefties on this site, obwan. My bet is a lot of them are able to see past the Obama Smoke Screen and BS to see that he isn't leader enough to get the country going again.

[hillzhaveays]

I have an idea, let's just raise taxes on all business and all rich people. The benefits will be two-fold: 1) we don't have to listen to all the Wealth Envy comments from the libbies anymore, and 2) we get to be amused by all the whining about how they can't find work, now that they've been laid off because businesses had to cut costs somewhere, now that their tax bills have gone up.

Oh wait, that doesn't get cure the national debt or get the economy heated up. I guess we'll have to try something else besides tax hikes then. Any suggestions?

[FoxNews-Truth]

What do you expect from business owners when Barry says
'You didn't built that' by yourself so it has to belong to the masses and me and the government.
The Marxist Communist Obama is losing support on all fronts and he will be over thrown as comrade dictator in November.

[wfw3536]

I guess some folks do not know that there are 27 million small business owner in our country, and the why President Obama disrespected their hard work of businesses owner is sad and shows how little he believe in the American dream of individual success.

[WHAT-IS-HE-SMOKING]

Again the 1% for the 1%. .

[cloudninegirl]

Obama and the Democrats have trashed American enterprise. OF COURSE WE DO NOT SUPPORT THESE PEOPLE!