Will Obama's approval ratings ever be in the 60's again?

[pbrower2a]

60%+ approval? Everything would have to go right, and that just isn't going to happen.

I figure that 40% of the public is going to disapprove of him no matter how successful he is with the economy, if his health care reform begins to look good, and he successfully extricates the US from Afghanistan.  Nobody is going to do something that causes Americans to unite behind this President; it has been tried and it has proved an epic failure (9/11). That President Obama might handle an international crisis more competently than his predecessor does not mean that he will get the chance to meet such a crisis to his political advantage. 

I can't think of any President who has been able to sustain an approval rating in the 60's over a long time, and I can't imagine any President getting such an approval rating after his approval ratings have dipped into the low 40s. No interest hostile to the US is going to do anything suicidal. Does anyone envy al-Qaeda these days? 

Where it counts -- I can't see any President winning more than 61% against anyone because none has yet. President Obama has stepped on too many toes, and one doesn't challenge entrenched interests without causing those interests to set up permanent 'hate squads'. The Tea Party Movement isn't going away.

[pbrower2a]

These Democrats are hilarious Seriously, though, Obama's approvals will never hit 60% again. I can't even see them being in the 50s again.

50% isn't that far off. The absolute best for him that I can imagine is 55%, which probably translates into 55% of the popular vote and somewhere between 380 and 440 electoral votes depending on the level of statewide polarization. Obama won about the same margin in the share of the popular vote in 2008 as FDR did in 1944.  

[pbrower2a]

Not unless he reacts well to some unforseeable catastrophe.  His approval rating will probably fluctuate between the thirties and fifties and be in the mid-forties come election night.

I just can't imagine anyone inflicting a disaster that would serve the image of President Obama as al-Qaeda did for President George W. Bush.  Does anyone think that al-Qaeda is now in an enviable position?

[pbrower2a]

Clinton moved to the center. Obama is too egotistical for such a move. Yes, the climate is bad, but he still has himself to blame, too.

The fact that the Democrats have thrown away their chance within 2 years still dumbfounds me. While I support Bush, the fact is that the Democrats had the chance to dominate for at least a decade coming off of his unpopular reign. The libs really wasted their chance, it's amazing.

Sadly, I fear the GOP will waste their chance between Nov 2010 and 2012, too. But we will see.

It is the Republicans who tacked sharply to the Right and established a campaign of smears against a President who had little leeway on the Left. Maybe they could tack only so far before hitting a reef. This especially applies to the Tea Party Movement.


I don't know how genuine and sustainable the 50% approval is with Rasmussen, as it is new and so far a one-time event.  But he has had some occurrences of approval in the high 40s in recent days.  If it is an outlier, it isn't much of one. One daily poll proves only that day's results. For good reason I do not extrapolate far, and never on what could be statistical noise.  I have seen recent approval ratings in the low 40s. If I were to make a bet on where the next Rasmussen Daily Tracker will be the next day I would expect something between 45% and 48%.

 

[pbrower2a]

Back to 46% today.

Normal area. 50% may be an outlier -- but not by much.