60% Support Offshore Drilling, Still Critical Of Obama And Oil Companies
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 Email to a Friend ShareThis.Advertisement
Sixty percent (60%) of U.S. voters continue to support offshore oil drilling, but voters remain critical of President Obama's response to the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and are more critical than ever of how the companies involved are responding.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters finds that just nine percent (9%) rate the response of BP and Transocean, the companies associated with the leak, as good or excellent. This finding is down 20 points from early May and is the lowest level measured in the two months since an oil rig explosion caused the leak. A majority of voters (59%) rate the response of the companies as poor, up 10 points from two weeks ago.
Forty-seven percent (47%) rate the president’s handling of the Gulf oil leak as poor, basically unchanged from just after his Oval Office address to the nation about what the government has done and intends to do about the leak. The number of voters who give the president poor marks is up 21 points from early May. Thirty-six percent (36%) now rate his response to the spill as good or excellent, up slightly from the previous survey.
Support for offshore drilling is unchanged from earlier this month but is down from 72% just after the president announced in March that he was lifting the longtime ban on offshore drilling. Twenty-four percent (24%) oppose offshore drilling, and 15% more are undecided about it. A plurality (49%) of Americans also support deepwater drilling like the kind that led to the current situation in the Gulf.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on June 27-28, 2010 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.
Two-out-of-three voters (66%) remain concerned, however, that offshore oil drilling will cause environmental problems, while 32% don't share that concern. These figures include 36% who are Very Concerned and eight percent (8%) who are Not At All Concerned.
Male voters continue to be more supportive of offshore drilling than women. Men are also more critical of how the president and the companies have responded to the disaster.
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Republicans and 68% of unaffiliated voters favor offshore drilling. Democrats are evenly divided on the idea.
While 74% of GOP voters and 55% of unaffiliateds think the president is doing a poor job in responding to the Gulf leak, 70% of Democrats rate his performance in this area as good or excellent. Most voters in all three groups, however, are critical of how the companies have responded.
There's also little difference of opinion between Mainstream voters and the Political Class over how the companies have performed to date. But while 62% of Mainstream voters think the president is doing a poor job, the overwhelming majority (93%) of Political Class voters view Obama's response as good or excellent.
Seventy-two percent (72%) of Mainstream voters support offshore oil drilling. A plurality (49%) of the Political Class is opposed.
Ninety-three percent (93%) of all voters nationwide are following recent news reports about the Gulf oil leak at least somewhat closely.
In recent weeks, BP has run a slew of television commercials boasting about its cleanup efforts in the Gulf. But just 25% of Adults share a favorable opinion of BP, the oil company chiefly responsible for the massive oil leak.
Similarly, 65% are not confident that BP will distribute compensation funding fairly and in a timely fashion to those who deserve it. |
