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30% Say Obama Too Confrontational, Highest Since Health Care Debate

The number of voters who see President Obama's leadership style as too confrontational has reached its highest level since the health care issue was front and center.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 30% of Likely U.S. Voters describe the president’s leadership style as too confrontational, up nine points from 21% a month ago and the highest finding since March 2010. Twenty-four percent (24%) say Obama is too cooperative, while 32% think his leadership style is about right.  Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

Those who think the president is too confrontational have ranged from 13% to 32% since he assumed office in January 2009.  The number who feel he is too cooperative has run from 17% to 38% in the same period.

Forty-two percent (42%) of voters now view the president as a good or excellent leader, while 41% rate his leadership as poor, the latter his worst showing this year.

These findings are generally in line, though, with Obama’s ratings over the past two years. When he first took office, 64% gave him good or excellent marks for leadership. Those positives fell into the 40s by July 2009 and have generally remained in that range ever since.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on July 24-25, 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.

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