Fox News Poll: Voters say Obama 'disengaged,' US losing its standing

A majority of voters describes President Obama’s leadership as “disengaged,” and almost all continue to believe the nation’s reputation is declining, according to the latest Fox News poll.

The new poll, released Tuesday, finds 80 percent of voters think the U.S. is losing some of its standing in the world. A sizable 69 percent-majority of Democrats joins a vast 90-percent majority of Republicans in holding that view.

Last year about the same number overall felt the U.S. was losing its reputation (82 percent).

CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS

At the same time, voters think the country’s top leader isn’t as focused on his job as he should be: 58 percent describe Obama’s leadership as “disengaged and slow to react.” More than one in four Democrats agrees with that characterization (27 percent).

Some 40 percent of voters say the president is “fully engaged and on top of things.” Democrats (72 percent) are more than twice as likely as independents (35 percent) and seven times as likely as Republicans (10 percent) to feel that way.

Obama’s overall job performance rating remains underwater by double-digit margins: 41 percent of voters approve, while 54 percent disapprove. Earlier this month it was 40-54 percent.

And, as the United States sends hundreds of military advisers to help Iraq fight terrorist insurgents, Obama’s marks on foreign policy hit a record low: 32 percent now approve of the job he’s doing, while 60 percent disapprove. His previous low was 33-56 percent in March.

Furthermore, by a more than two-to-one margin, voters think that Obama didn’t have enough foreign policy experience to be “an effective president and commander-in-chief” when he first ran for president in 2008. Only 29 percent say he did, while 64 percent disagree.

Some 37 percent of Democrats believe Obama didn’t have the necessary foreign policy experience to be an effective president when he first ran.

Meanwhile, Obama’s personal favorable rating remains lower than former President George W. Bush’s. More voters have a negative opinion of Obama (53 percent) than a positive view (45 percent) by eight percentage points. For Bush, slightly more voters have a favorable view (49 percent) than unfavorable (47 percent) for an overall positive rating (+ two points). That’s today; at a comparable point in Bush’s presidency, voters had an overall negative view of him by 15 points (May 2006).

Yet when given the opportunity for a mulligan on the 2012 presidential election, Obama still tops Republican Mitt Romney by a 38-35 percent margin in the re-match.

Just two percent of 2012 Obama voters say they would now back Romney and only one percent of 2012 Romney voters would now support Obama.

Overall though, Romney has more defectors, as 20 percent of his voters would now either back someone else or not vote at all. Among 2012 Obama voters that number is 14 percent.

Pollpourri

One reason voters might find the president disengaged is that he claims he first learned about a number of his administration’s scandals (including at the IRS, Veterans Affairs and Justice Department) from the news media. Then again, less than a third believe that he actually found out from the media (31 percent). Almost twice as many don’t believe that could truly be the case (60 percent).

Most Republicans (73 percent) and independents (68 percent) find it unbelievable that Obama learned about the scandals from the news.

Among Democrats, views split: 42 percent believe Obama and 44 percent don’t buy it.

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,018 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from June 21-23, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.