Obama Re-election Bid on Life Support

Americans are growing increasingly more frustrated with President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy and only 3 in 10 say they are certain they will vote to re-elect him in 2012, a new poll finds.

Just 23 percent of those surveyed for a Bloomberg News poll released Wednesday say they are hopeful about the economy because they see signs of improvement, while 25 percent say they are fearful things are getting worse and 51 percent are cautious because nothing seems to be happening.

Those signs of economic pessimism aren’t helping Obama’s reelection bid. 

Poll: 44% of Americans Worse Off Under Obama

...By a 44 percent to 34 percent margin, Americans say they believe they are worse off than when President Barack Obama took office in early 2009, when the U.S. was in the depths of a recession compounded by the September 2008 financial crisis and the economy was losing as many as 820,000 jobs a month.

The gloom covers the immediate future, with fewer than 1 in 10 people expecting unemployment to return to pre-recession levels within the next two years, and it extends to the next generation. More than half of respondents say their children are destined to have a lower standard of living than they do, upending a traditional touchstone of the American Dream.