The Official Obama 2.0 Approval Ratings Thread

[jaichind]

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8irrnl3d27/20130722trackingreport.pdf

Economist/YouGov Poll has Obama approval/disapproval for RV to be 41/56 which is -15.  I find 56 hard to believe although Obama approval/disapproval is for sure significantly under water.

[jaichind]

The RCP average for Obama approval/disapproval is now at 43.9/50.6.  This is pretty close to the worst result for Obama since he became POTUS.   Back in Fall of 2010 before the rout of 2010 the RCP average was mostly around 45.5/49.5.

[jaichind]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/165509/obama-job-approval-declines-19th-quarter.aspx

Looking at the 19th quarter approval rating averages of different presidents.  I am struck at

Reagan         61.3%
Clinton          58.8%
Bush II          43.9%
Obama          44.5%

Looking at House races a year later, in 1986 and 1998 the House elections were pretty much a wash.  In 2006 it was a Democratic wave.  Looking at these numbers what will 2014 look like, 1986/1998 or 2006?  Of course you can argue that 2014 will be much more polarized so Dem turnout might be higher than these approval ratings might suggest.

[jaichind]

According to the internals for the CBS poll, they interviewed 281 Republicans, 299 Democrats, and 430 others. That's a mighty GOP-leaning sample.

One thing I found intesting about this poll (and other polls shows something similar as well) is that while approval of Congressional GOP is lower than Congressional Dem, the level of independent approaval for both GOP and Dem are about the same.  The main reason for the gap between GOP and Dem congressional approval is GOP identifiers approve of the Congressional GOP less than Dem identifiers approve of Congressional Dem.  If the levels were the same then the overall apporval of Congressional GOP would only be 1 point less than overall approval of Congressional Dem.  I suspect even GOP supporters disapprovers of the Congressional GOP have negative enough opinion of Obama that they will still come out to vote GOP in 2014.  In which case Dem comfort that GOP Congressional approval being low will help them is really not going to come true in 2014.

[jaichind]

I have sent RCP an email that they should remove that silly Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll from their average, just like the Economist/YouGov poll.

They are major outliers.

Rasmussen, Gallup, CNN and CBS all show ca. 50-50 ratings right now.

Reuters/Ipsos has a 38% (!!!) approval and YouGov is not much better.

These 2 were already way off compared with the 2014 exit poll.

Perhaps, on the flip side if we go back 3-4 month ago we can make a similar argument that Rasmussen should be taken off the RCP average since it consistently has a much higher approval rating for Obama than the rest of the pack.  All that took place since was Gallup and CBS has converged to the Rasmussen while Reuters/Ipsos and to some extend FOX and Economist/YouGov still has approval ratings more like 3-4 months ago.  That is the whole point of a RCP average.  House effects is not constant (in 2012 Reuters/Ipsos and Economist/YouGov were very accurate while Rasmussen has a history of a GOP bias which now seems to be reversed.)  So the best way to cater for all of this is go for an average accepting that there will be some that would not be close to the pack for some period of time.