Obama’s support on campuses slipping

In advance of Tuesday's midterm election, Coe College senior Amanda Ellenberger canvassed houses Monday in southwest Cedar Rapids for the Iowa Democratic Party.

Ellenberger, 21, is active with the Coe Democrats and volunteers for the statewide party. She was an Obama supporter in 2008 and remains a booster, satisfied with what the president has accomplished.

Recent national surveys show, though, more of Ellenberger's peers are unhappy with the job Obama has done in his first two years, and his support among college-aged voters has fallen.

An Associated Press-mtvU poll found college students cooling in their support - from 60 percent who gave the president high marks in May 2009 to 44 percent in late September. In that poll, 27 percent in September said they were unhappy with Obama's leadership, compared with 15 percent who held that opinion in May 2009, according to the Associated Press. The poll surveyed more than 2,000 undergrads ages 18 to 24.

A recent Harvard University poll found similar results, adding that the past 11 months have seen a significant downturn in young voters' enthusiasm for and interest in politics, a reversal of the trend leading up to the 2008 election, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Ellenberger, from Cedar Rapids, said she believes part of that is the excitement of the presidential election wearing off for college students, who typically aren't as interested in midterm elections. She's happy about the health care reform spurred by Obama and with his attitude in the face of a divided Congress.

“The poll numbers are a little frustrating, and I'd like to know why or what the students think is going on,” she said. “Maybe he's not creating huge dramatic changes, but the reality is that's not his fault.”

University of Iowa senior Caitlin Ross believes it's pretty standard for a candidate's popularity to decline once that person becomes president. Ross, a 23-year-old history and secondary education major from Rockford, Ill., was involved with Students for Barack Obama at the UI in 2008. She said her support for the president remains high, but she can see where some might become disinterested once the work of governing sets in.

“It's different when you don't get to go to a rally and prove your support, probably less exciting for some,” she said.

It's not as if Obama's popularity has declined only among college students; the fall has been across the board, said Tim Hagle, UI associate professor of political science and adviser to the UI College Republicans.

Support could be lagging because midterm elections rarely have the same intensity as presidential elections, Hagle said. Also, young voters, especially recent graduates or those about to graduate, could be feeling disappointment over the bad economy and poor job market, Hagle said.

College students were among the most ardent Obama supporters in 2008, Hagle said, so the declining approval ratings among young voters is perhaps more noticeable now.

“The enthusiasm was just so high that it really had nowhere to go but down, to some extent,” he said.

Iowa State University senior Tyler Pauly, 21, is president of the ISU Libertarians. He wasn't an Obama supporter in 2008, but he said he thought Obama did a good job catering to younger voters in that election.

“I think the general college-age population may have been disheartened to see that following the glow of his inauguration, it was back to politics as usual,” Pauly, a physics and astronomy major from Winterset, said via e-mail.

Pauly believes that for the most part among his friends it's business as usual.

“Liberal friends still support him, while Libertarian and conservative friends still oppose him,” Pauly said. “I think some of the independent friends who were swayed by the momentum he carried into November 2008 have now sobered up to the fact that he is just another politician.”

Adam Kenworthy, an ISU graduate student in English education and president of the ISU Democrats, said the Obama campaign's upbeat narrative during the 2008 election drew in students and first-time voters, but it's hard to sustain that in Washington politics, said Kenworthy, 27.

“There were those of us who were aware the euphoria wasn't going to last forever,” he said.