39% Say Obama Governing in a Bipartisan Way, 44% Disagree

President Obama has received a bounce in support following the killing of Osama bin Laden, and now the gap in voter sentiments over whether he’s doing a good job reaching across the congressional aisle is at its narrowest point in two years of monthly tracking. But voters feel no change in the behavior of either party in Congress.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of Likely Voters say Barack Obama is governing on a bipartisan basis.  Forty-four percent (44%) disagree and say he’s governing like a partisan Democrat.  Another 17% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Last month, 34% said the president was governing on a bipartisan basis, while 49% disagreed. In the latest survey, the number of voters who feel Obama is being bipartisan has climbed to its highest level since early March 2009.  Meanwhile, the number who feels he is acting like a partisan Democrat has fallen to its lowest level in that same period. 

A strong majority (63%) say politics in Washington, D.C. will be more partisan over the next year.  Since Obama assumed office in January 2009, that finding has steadily climbed from a low of 40% to a high of 70% reached in early August of last year.  The finding has declined somewhat since then. Only 16% say politics inside the Beltway will be more cooperative over the next year.  Twenty-one percent (21%) are undecided.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 5-6, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.