A week of terrible polls: Obama & ObamaCare hit new lows

If several new polls are to be believed, Americans aren't happy. They think the country is headed in the wrong direction, they don't like the President, they think his foreign policy is a disaster, and they really don't like his signature legislation.

According to NBC News, their newest polling isn't looking pretty:

"We're in the summer of our discontent," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "Americans are cranky, unhappy… It is with everything going on the world."

Hart went on to try and portray his polling in the most Democrat-friendly way possible but the numbers are ugly:

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As for the politicians measured in the NBC/WSJ poll, President Obama's overall job rating stands at an all-time low of 40 percent, a one-point drop from June. And Obama's favorable/unfavorable rating remains upside down at 40 percent positive, 47 percent negative.

So why are Obama's numbers continuing to fall? It looks like normally loyal voting blocs have had enough:

That decline comes from slightly lower support from Democrats and African-American respondents.

In other words, people who used to say "Yeah things aren't going well, but it's not the President's fault" have started to tie the effects of Obama's policies to the President himself. After years of dodging responsibility for his actions, Obama is no longer escaping blame. And that's the good news. If you start digging into the data, things actually get worse.

• Obama's overall job approval rating is 40% positive to 54% negative - a record negative for the NBC poll
• Obama is underwater on the right track/wrong track question by a staggering 71 to 22
• Obama's "very negative" exceeds his "very positive" 33 to 22
• Obama's handling of foreign affairs is a complete disaster, showing him underwater on every front

• Ukraine-Russia conflict: 23/43
• Gaza-Israel conflict: 17/45
• ISIS in Iraq: 14/42
• Syria: 18/37

Perhaps most importantly for the midterms, Obama is seen as having failed on the current immigration crisis. Only 11% think he's doing a good job, vs. 64% who think he's not. You can argue that Democrats are angry that he hasn't implemented some kind of unconstitutional unilateral "fix," but the odds are that this will cause an equally negative reaction. So any boost among Dems will likely be (at least partially) offset by a drop among everyone else. Unfortunately for Democrats who might be hoping the poll is an outlier, it's right in line with an AP poll from August 1st: AP/GfK Poll: Obama job approval drops six net points from May to fall to 40-59, both an all time high disapproval and widest approval gap. Oh, and if the Democrats are hoping ObamaCare will save them, they're in for a disappointment. According to the Washington Post, the law is more unpopular than ever...

The Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, which has been keeping constant tabs on public sentiment on the Affordable Care Act for nearly four years, shows 53 percent of Americans now have an unfavorable impression of the law. That's the highest on record and an increase of eight percentage points in one month.

We'll have to wait and see how this impacts the November elections but, if Republicans can tie Obama's many failures to his party, it doesn't bode well for Democrats. The key will be to make sure voters understand that rank-and-file congressional Dems have wholeheartedly, unflinchingly, supported all of the worst aspects of the Obama Presidency. Link them to his policy, and watch the red wave.... Let them escape blame, and you'll maintain the status quo.