Does High Political Fundraising Dollars Translate into Approval Ratings?

With the 2012 presidential election just under ten months away, a current survey conducted by Fox News shows that it’s going to be one close race. So far President Obama is ahead in his political fundraising numbers, but does that translate into high approval ratings?

There are some surprising results presented in this survey involving telephone interviews with 906 randomly chosen registered voters. If Obama and Romney were to go head to head in the polls today, 46 percent of voters would back the incumbent and 45 percent would support Romney. Consider that there is a three percent margin for error, and it could be anyone’s game.

In an interesting twist, the report states that, “behind those numbers is a striking contrast: 74 percent of Obama backers say they are voting ‘for’ him rather than ‘against Romney’ (21 percent). Yet for Romney, his support is mainly anti-Obama. Fifty-eight percent of Romney voters say they would be voting ‘against Obama’ rather than ‘for Romney’ (33 percent).”

Not surprising is the dedication that voters have towards the political party that they are affiliated with. 88 percent of Democrats support Obama and 86 percent of Republicans support Romney. What I do find intriguing is that with other Republican contenders still in the race, Romney’s numbers are rather high. I know that these numbers are based on an Obama vs. Romney election, but it seems pretty clear that the Republican forerunner has a strong chance at grabbing the nomination for president.

Furthermore, even with drastically low approval numbers, Obama still has a fighting chance at a second term. The survey found that, “currently 45 percent of voters approve and 47 percent disapprove of the job President Obama is doing. That’s little changed from December when 44 percent approved and 51 percent disapproved… Meanwhile, about four voters in 10 are either ‘very happy’ (7 percent) or ‘satisfied’ (35 percent) with the Obama administration. More than a third is ‘disappointed’ (37 percent) and about one in five is ‘angry’ (19 percent). These views are mostly unchanged from the last time the question was asked in September 2011.”

So what can we learn from this survey? For non-profits and politicians alike, if you have a strong and faithful support team, the possibilities are endless at what you can achieve. Secondly, these numbers are too close to call at who will become the next leader of the nation. It has been said time and again that the battleground is on the internet, so hang on as we see some new strategies being implemented using social media fundraising.