Mid-term polls non-voters split over Barack Obama: Poll

Washington, Nov 18 (ANI): As US President Barack Obama prepares to contest the 2012 presidential elections for a second term, he is getting conflicting signals from some of the voters who helped him win in 2008, according to a poll by moderate think tank Third Way.

Voters who backed Obama in 2008, but did not vote during the 2010 midterms, are divided over whether the president should have steered further to the center or governed more to the left, Politico reports.

Of those who backed Obama but sat out the midterms, 16 percent said that Obama is more conservative than they are but 25 percent said he's more liberal.

Among these "droppers," 45 percent said that Obama and Democrats "should have tried to have government do more" and 39 percent said they "tried to have government do too much."

Meanwhile, 39 percent said Obama and Democrats "did not push hard enough on issues like climate change, 'don't ask, don't tell' and immigration reform." 44 percent disagreed. Half agreed with the statement that "deficits are a serious problem," but 42 percent said they are "a concern but we have more pressing priorities."

According to Third Way, the quickest way to Obama's re-election lies in the center. The group is trying hard to prevent the party from drifting leftward in reaction to heavy losses suffered disproportionately by moderate Democrats this month, the report said.

Anne Kim, the director of Third Way's Domestic Policy Program, said that the results undercut the argument that Democrats lost because the liberal base is dispirited.

"The path to either gaining or retaining power is strongest through the middle," That's true for both parties," she added.

The poll also reportedly focussed on voters who switched from backing Obama to supporting a Republican candidate for Congress. Among them, 66 percent said Democrats tried to do too much, while three-quarters either do not think Democrats are responsible with taxpayer dollars or don't think they're serious about reducing the deficit. A majority said that the health care reform bill was a major reason for their vote. (ANI)