美六成民衆對奧巴馬缺乏信心

Nearly 60 percent of American voters say they lack faith in President Barack Obama, according to a public opinion poll published on Tuesday.

The results of the Washington Post/ABC News poll are a reversal of what voters said at the start of Obama's presidency 18 months ago when about 60 percent expressed confidence in his decision making.

Confidence in Obama is at a new low but the poll found that his numbers are still higher than lawmakers of either major party four months ahead of the November congressional elections.

Asked how much confidence they have in Obama to make the right decisions for the country's future, 58 percent of respondents said "just some" or "none."

Sixty-eight percent expressed the same sentiments about Democrats in Congress and 72 percent said the same of Republicans.

The Post said problems in the housing industry, sluggish job growth and other economic issues may have taken a toll on Obama's approval rating.

Just 43 percent of all Americans, including a third of Democrats, now say they approve of the job Obama is doing on the economy, while 54 percent disapprove.

The survey also found wide anti-incumbent sentiment with 62 percent of voters saying they were not inclined to support their current representative.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs in the November 2 election as well as 36 of the 100 Senate seats.

Democrats now control both houses of Congress, but a slight majority of those polled said they would prefer to have Republicans in control to serve as a check on Obama's policies.

The poll of 1,288 people was conducted July 7-11 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

本週二公佈的一項民調顯示，近60%的美國選民對總統貝拉克•奧巴馬缺乏信心。

該調查由《華盛頓郵報》和美國廣播公司新聞部聯合開展，調查結果與18個月前奧巴馬執政伊始的情況截然相反，當時約60%的選民表示對奧巴馬的決策能力很有信心。

儘管美國民衆對奧巴馬的信心降至新低，但調查顯示，選民對兩大政黨中議員的信心指數更低。美國將在4個月後，即11月份舉行國會選舉。

在被問及對奧巴馬政策制定、治理國家的能力有多大信心時，58%的受訪者回答“只有一點”，或“沒有信心”。

68%的受訪者對國會中的民主黨議員持有同感，72%的受訪者對共和黨議員缺乏信心。

據《華盛頓郵報》報道，房地產業問題多多、就業市場不景氣以及其它經濟問題可能是導致奧巴馬支持率下降的主要原因。

僅有43%的美國民衆對奧巴馬目前的經濟政策表示認可，其中包括三分之一的民主黨人；而54%的民衆則表示不滿意。

調查還發現，選民對現任的“朝中大臣”們存在普遍不滿，62%的選民稱他們不打算支持現任的黨派代表。

美國將於11月2日舉行國會選舉，屆時選民將對衆議院的全部435個席位和參議院100個席位中的36個席位進行選舉。

目前民主黨佔國會參衆兩院的多數席位，但稍佔多數的受訪者表示，他們希望共和黨能控制國會，以爲奧巴馬的政策制定把關。

這項調查於7月7日至11日之間開展，共對1288名受訪者進行了訪問，抽樣誤差率爲正負3.5個百分點。

Vocabulary:

take a toll: be damaging or harmful, cause loss or destruction（產生負面影響，造成重大損失）

incumbent: holding an indicated position, role, office, etc., currently（在職的，現任的）

up for grabs: available to anyone willing to expend the energy to get it（提供的，可供爭奪的）