Obama’s support waning among college goers ahead of Nov mid-term polls

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama’s support among college students is waning, with only 44 percent approving of the job he is doing while 27 percent claiming that they are unhappy with his job performance, according to an Associated Press-mtvU poll.

According to the New York Daily News, the current figure is a significant dip from the 60 percent who gave the president high marks in a May 2009 poll. Only 15 percent of college students had a negative opinion of him that time.

Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, a non-partisan group that encourages young voters, said that it has registered 225,000 voters for this year’s election.

Although the numbers are more than four times as many as last midterm’s election in 2006, she said the political parities are not giving out as much cash to garner the youth vote.

“It’s a cycle of neglect,” she added.

The 2008 elections are an indication that the Democrats need young voters, the paper said.

During that presidential race, nearly one in eight voters cast their votes for the first time. Exit polls had shown that 55 percent of new voters were of 18-24 years, and those young first-timers strongly supported the Democrats.

The paper quoted political scientists, campaign workers, and students, as saying that many young people are not happy with Obama’s handling of the economy, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and failures to end the ban against gays serving openly in the military. They are also disappointed with his inability to have delivered campaign promises to change Washington.

The survey asked 2,207 randomly chosen undergraduates at 40 randomly selected four-year schools with at least 1,000 students. (ANI)