Maybe. The shift appears to be among blue-collar voters and business owners:
Especially notable is Obama's position among several high-status occupational groups not traditionally part of the Democratic coalition. Although the major lobbying groups for small business usually align with Republicans, the poll found that 58 percent of the self-employed approve of Obama's performance. He receives a 55 percent approval rating from "knowledge workers" -- college-educated professionals, such as engineers, consultants, and lawyers. Obama's approval stands at 53 percent among the swells in the corner office, the people who identified themselves as senior business managers. That's high for a Democrat.
Those positive early reviews underscore Obama's opportunity to build an unusually expansive electoral coalition. Arguably, the past generation's most important political trend has been the class inversion in the two parties' support. Since the 1960s, Republicans have gained enormous ground among blue-collar white voters, many of them conservative on cultural and national security issues, who once anchored the Democratic coalition. Since the 1980s, Democrats have advanced among well-educated and affluent voters who are fiscally moderate but lean left on the same social and foreign-policy issues that have moved blue-collar families toward the GOP.
In the 2008 election, Obama struggled with blue-collar whites but extended the Democratic inroads upscale. This new survey shows him improving his position since then with both camps and further loosening the Republican grip on well-off groups that soured on George W. Bush. But it also pinpoints where Obama's agenda could strain his ties to those upscale voters.
