The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[J. J.]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

[Tender Branson]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

New Hampshire doesn't vote for a reactionary like Perry.

And why do you refuse to color North Carolina and Florida as battleground states ?

North Carolina isn't what it once was and FL is for sure a battleground state.

[Skill and Chance]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

That's way too optimistic for Perry.  That looks like a Romney vs. Obama map with status quo 2011 economic conditions (i.e. a narrow Romney win).  The toss up states should be shifted one tier to the right with a year of solid jobs growth (or one tier to the left with further job losses).  Perry doesn't play well in IA/CO/NV and he would struggle to avoid being blown out 2:1 in NOVA.

Here's Obama vs. Perry with modest economic improvement:






     

[kingthlayer]

JJ, I'm not trying to steal your thunder here:

Gallup, eh?

Approval: 43%, +1
Disapproval: 50%, u

Okay, this is starting to seem counter-intuitive. Economy creates no new jobs, stock market tanks yet disapproval declines and approval rises. Perhaps we are reverting back to where we were pre-debt ceiling crisis, as liberals "get over it" and move back to Obama? Or perhaps we're seeing a pro-recession sample of Tea Partiers who are loving that his chances of re-election are on the decline?

[pbrower2a]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

Recent polls in Texas show that Rick Perry is doing badly among Hispanics (largely Mexican-Americans)  in Texas -- so why should he do better with Mexican-Americans in Colorado or Nevada (or for that matter, Arizona) or with other Hispanics in Florida?

Iowa and New Hampshire are not going to vote for a reactionary who wears Protestant fundamentalism on his sleeve. Virginia may be happy with a Republican Governor who acts as a moderate... but that is not to say that a Hard Right candidate has much of a chance there. The Democrats are going to take Pennsylvania off the table with a strong GOTV campaign that gets out every D-leaning voter in greater Philly and Pittsburgh.

Ohio is Obama territory if he is able to please the auto industry and the UAW... and Indiana goes into question at that point. North Carolina has consistently shown itself a swing state since 2008. Even NE-02 depends upon how the Nebraska state legislature reconfigures the district.

[J. J.]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Job-Approval-Center.aspx

Gallup, meh:

Approve:  43%, +1.

Disapprove:  50%, u.

We might be seeing von Kluck's turn.

[J. J.]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

New Hampshire doesn't vote for a reactionary like Perry.

And why do you refuse to color North Carolina and Florida as battleground states ?

North Carolina isn't what it once was and FL is for sure a battleground state.

NH has a strong libertarian streak and Perry is more likely to appeal to that. Both NC and FL were barely carried by Obama in a year very favorable to him.  I doubt that 2012 will be that favorable.

[The Vorlon]

Obama carried Florida by 2.81% in 2008.

I am just abut 100% sure Florida is 2.81% less favorable to Obama today than it was in 2008.

[The Vorlon]

Okay, this is starting to seem counter-intuitive. Economy creates no new jobs, stock market tanks yet disapproval declines and approval tanks. Perhaps we are reverting back to where we were pre-debt ceiling crisis, as liberals "get over it" and move back to Obama? Or perhaps we're seeing a pro-recession sample of Tea Partiers who are loving that his chances of re-election are on the decline?

Gallup's polling methods are substantially different than those used by other pollsters, there are just simply some fundemental and structural elements in the way Gallup does things that causes their polls to be erratic, at least when viewed in the short term.

Gallup's tracking poll has a long history of wandering off on it's own (in either direction) before reverting back to the mean. - This is not a criticism of Gallup BTW, there methods have some very substantial advantages as well, unfortunately stability is not one of them.

Rasmussen, at the other extreme, is build to be very stable, it is built almost the opposite of Gallup.

I look at the current crop of polls on the RCP averages and I see on the approval side:

Politico/GWU/Battleground                45
CNN/Opinion Research                        45   
FOX News                                             44      
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl                        44   
Rasmussen Reports                              43   
Gallup                                                43   
ABC News/Wash Post                        43   
Quinnipiac                                        42   

We have, give or take a bit of random error, consensus at 43% or 44%.

If somebody very, very, very gold plated (perhaps NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl) were to show, in a series of polls, a number away from the consensus I would look at it.  But till then, it's all just random noise till proven otherwise.

As they saying goes... "One poll, is, well, one poll....."

[kingthlayer]

Right, but it seems downright WEIRD that Obama can somehow be in the mid 40s with the economy the way it is. Doesn't it?

[Lief]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

lol

[J. J.]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

lol

Well, you're right, it would probably be worse.

[State Comptroller Atkins]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

lol

Well, you're right, it would probably be worse.

For the Republicans.

[Senator Sbane]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

Dude, if unemployment drops to 8%, with Perry as his opponent Obama will win both NC and FL. You can take that one to the bank. And NH? Have you lost it?

[J. J.]

This is my "The economy has improved, unemployment drops to 8%, the R nominee is Perry/-not Rubio/-Romney, and we're not in a realignment" map:

lol

Well, you're right, it would probably be worse.

For the Republicans.

Dave has not changed the colors.

Even with improvement, Obama has engendered people that really, really, hate him.  He's lost that group.  Right now, on Rasmussen, that group is higher than everyone who even sort of likes him.  Related to that are the people that have totally given up on him. 

(Ironically, I'm not in the group that really, really, hates him or have totally given up on him.)

That map, BTW, would still show a potential Obama victory.

[Senator Sbane]

Right, but it seems downright WEIRD that Obama can somehow be in the mid 40s with the economy the way it is. Doesn't it?

If the election were held today, I would think Obama gets about 48-49% vs Perry and maybe 47-48% vs Romney. Electorally speaking, Obama-Perry is too close to call (Perry being the slight favorite tbh) and a slight Romney victory. Against someone like Bachmann, Obama would win even in these conditions. IIRC Bush was hanging out around 48-49% when he was re-elected. Though if it was different please feel free to correct me.

[The Vorlon]

Right, but it seems downright WEIRD that Obama can somehow be in the mid 40s with the economy the way it is. Doesn't it?

If the election were held today, I would think Obama gets about 48-49% vs Perry and maybe 47-48% vs Romney. Electorally speaking, Obama-Perry is too close to call (Perry being the slight favorite tbh) and a slight Romney victory. Against someone like Bachmann, Obama would win even in these conditions. IIRC Bush was hanging out around 48-49% when he was re-elected. Though if it was different please feel free to correct me.

Think you are pretty close re Bush approvals in 2004.



FWIW, according to the 2004 exit polls, among those who actually voted, Bush had an approval rating of 51%, which is almost exactly the 50.73% of the vote he actually got on election day....

At the very depths of the Abu Garab (sp?) mess Bush had a net negative approval rating of about  negative5%, But Bush was never definitively and clearly underwater befor the 2004 election, there was a lot of statistical noise where Bush was close to being even in terms of approval and disapproval.

He was able to battle back to +2 or 3% net by election day - a net turnaround of maybe 5% or so.

By contrast, Obama's approval is clearly underwater:



Also, A republican tends to do a little better than the adult/rv polling shows on election day, while a Democrat tends to do a little worse, so the relative gap of Obama 2011 versus Bush 2003 might be a bit bigger than it looks just using the graphs as a guide.

All this being said, the polls some 15 months out are not particularly predictive....

Its a bit interesting how volatile Obama's numbers have been.

Bush's approval ratings "crossed over" only three times (where his net approval went from positive to negative, or negative to positive)

he went (barely) negative during Abu Garab (sp?) then back to slightly positive till the election was over, the crossed back to negative and stayed there...

By contrast, Obama has "crossed over" 5 times already in under three years....

[izixs]

Right, but it seems downright WEIRD that Obama can somehow be in the mid 40s with the economy the way it is. Doesn't it?

Easy. The general assumption is that poor economy = hate the president. And for some people it is true, but not everyone. For some people its poor economy = hate the people that caused it. Some with very short term memories think Obama caused it. But most folks yet put the blame on Bush and the Republicans. This explains some of the feelings about congress perhaps but doesn't really apply to Obama. So for the set of folks that are not short term thinkers, the question is: Is the President doing enough to fix the economy? This is a much more mixed view. Of the people with less extremely set views on the president no matter what he does (tea party for example) there are people who are able to be convinced one way or another on how the president is doing in this department. Some of them pay a lot of attention. Others not so much. Some of them understand the complexity of the economy. Some do not. Most have inherent biases of some sort and are more easily swayed but certain arguments. And at present they're being swayed on the average towards thinking the president is either unable or unwilling to do what it takes to fix things, and thus are leaning towards disapproval. But its not a solid sell as this sup set of voters is hardly homogeneous. And as such, there is divisions here.

There is another possibility of course. That being that if the president has lost almost all the sway-able voters described above then he'd be near his base partisan limit. Basically the folks that would vote for a terrible Democrat in almost all cases because they know the Republican will always be worse for them and their interests. This kind of base solidity is not very well understood as some people claim to be persuadable but always seem to pull the lever for one party, and thus are not easily identified by polls and only sometimes by demographics (for instances, African American voters) So if this is the case, you could have 15% unemployment and the President would be maintaining 40% approval.

The question then is, what about the end of the Bush years when his approvals dropped crazy low? It might be that the Republican super base is much smaller then it likes to think itself or a very different dynamic was in play. Because Bush was not up for reelection in 2008, his base voters were liberated from having to pretend they like him. This plays well in two different directions. It allows some of them to feel good about themselves because Bush 'wasn't a real conservative'. Another direction is simply jumping on the bandwagon. The rest of the country was starting to hate him, so if one is going to keep looking like a mainstream guy, ya gotta start hating him to.

If Obama is reelected and things go much worse then they are today, it will be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out. I'd prefer of course that the economy grows strong and the yahoos who can hire start doing so again. But if disaster hits an Obama second term you might see him dip below his solid base level.

But I'm not sure what that is yet.

[The Vorlon]

There is another possibility of course. That being that if the president has lost almost all the sway-able voters described above then he'd be near his base partisan limit. Basically the folks that would vote for a terrible Democrat in almost all cases because they know the Republican will always be worse for them and their interests. This kind of base solidity is not very well understood as some people claim to be persuadable but always seem to pull the lever for one party, and thus are not easily identified by polls and only sometimes by demographics (for instances, African American voters) So if this is the case, you could have 15% unemployment and the President would be maintaining 40% approval.

The question then is, what about the end of the Bush years when his approvals dropped crazy low? It might be that the Republican super base is much smaller then it likes to think itself or a very different dynamic was in play. Because Bush was not up for reelection in 2008, his base voters were liberated from having to pretend they like him. This plays well in two different directions. It allows some of them to feel good about themselves because Bush 'wasn't a real conservative'. Another direction is simply jumping on the bandwagon. The rest of the country was starting to hate him, so if one is going to keep looking like a mainstream guy, ya gotta start hating him to.

If Obama is reelected and things go much worse then they are today, it will be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out. I'd prefer of course that the economy grows strong and the yahoos who can hire start doing so again. But if disaster hits an Obama second term you might see him dip below his solid base level.

But I'm not sure what that is yet.

You hit the nail on the head.

A huge chunk of voters are ideology driven, not reality driven.

When Bush Jr. turned out to be a bit of a disaster, it his base deserted him, not because conservatism was wrong, but because Bush wasn't conservative enough.... Their beliefs were correct, Bush was just an imperfect servant to their ideology.

Similarly, Obama's support to the degree they they are discontented, is again ideologically based.

Obama's own prediction for the Stimulus package was that he would keep unemployment under 8% - Despite Democratic post facto carping, the Democratic super majorities in both the House and Senate gave Obama every single penny he asked for...

So now that Unemployment is stuck above 9% when Obama's own prediction was that it would be 6.5% by now... - this is not because Obama's stimulus package was inherently flawed, it was because it was too small... (see Jack Krugman)

If only Obama octupled the size of the deficit instead of only tripling it, things would be much better...

Even in absolute utter blowout years AuH₂0 1964, H³ in 1972, Mondale in 1984, the losing candidate still got 40+ of the vote.

Barring a really strong 3rd party candidate, It is pretty hard to be a major party candidate and get less than 40%.

[J. J.]

Think you are pretty close re Bush approvals in 2004.



FWIW, according to the 2004 exit polls, among those who actually voted, Bush had an approval rating of 51%, which is almost exactly the 50.73% of the vote he actually got on election day....

I want to point out that this is almost identical to the Gallup weekly tracking poll.

He was able to battle back to +2 or 3% net by election day - a net turnaround of maybe 5% or so.

Except for GWB, all incumbent presidents that were reelected since 1972 had less than a majority in late August the year prior to their elections.  Bush had 52%, which was about what he got.  That pattern is good news for Obama.

Along with GWB, both Truman and Eisenhower had a majority.  Truman had between 61% and 55%.  Eisenhower had 71%.

There is bad news.  Of those four presidents that were reelected, all had higher numbers in late August the year prior to their elections than Obama has.  Clinton was the closes with 44% to Obama's 40%.

I'm treating both Ford and Truman as being incumbents that were re-elected.  All of this data is from Gallup.

[J. J.]

Rasmussen Obama (National)

Approve 42, -1.

Disapprove 56%, +1.

"Strongly Approve" is at 22%, u.  "Strongly Disapprove" is at 44%, +1.

I'd expect a bad sample.  Strongly approve is up, while approve is tied for a record low.

[J. J.]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Job-Approval-Center.aspx

Gallup, meh:

Approve:  42%, -1.

Disapprove:  50%, u.

And von Kluck is still sitting outside of Ameins. 

[Tender Branson]

Ayres, McHenry & Associates (R):

47% Approve
50% Disapprove

http://www.resurgentrepublic.com/system/assets/428/original/RR_August_Toplines.pdf

[J. J.]

Ayres, McHenry & Associates (R):

47% Approve
50% Disapprove

http://www.resurgentrepublic.com/system/assets/428/original/RR_August_Toplines.pdf

Am I reading the first question correctly?  Is it a poll of people answering on cell phones?

[izixs]

Building off what I said before, I'm starting to ponder looking at state by state polling data to try to find the percentage for each party that represents the core base for each in every state. Basically by looking at the minimal support Obama gets and the minimal support any of the Republicans get in credible non-partisan-biased polls. If the hard core base is most of what's left of those that approve of Obama enough to vote for him again, then against the strongest challenger he'd have only them left over. And for the lesser known or most disliked Republican candidates or would be candidates those that would vote Republican are those that would vote against Obama under any circumstances and thus most likely to be the core Republican base.

For instance, that PPP poll of Texas in June has the limits of Obama at 40% against Paul and Republican at 43% with Cain. This would suggest a Republican edge in the base there. It does not predict how the more swingy voters would fall in the election, but can provide some information on the size of that pool. So if some how Obama gets a winning strategy to get more then half of these folks on his side, he could win Texas. Its just very unlikely.

Another example, Utah. Obama's worst is 23% vs Huntsman and the Republicans worst is 43% with Palin or Cain. Obama would have to get almost all the swingable voters to be even competitive in Utah. So even if you didn't know the electoral history of Utah previous to this election, this would suggest not to bother sending resources there.

On the dem leaning side of things, there's Vermont. The latest poll has Obama's worst against Huckabee at 53% and the Republicans worst with 26% with Cain. Barring a very radical shift in the socio-political structure of the entire country or Obama going on a murderous rampage through an orphanage, any Republican efforts to win Vermont would be pointless to the extreme as there is not enough swing voters to get to a majority.

Then there's Virginia. The latest poll (all these seem to be PPP... other pollsters need to stop being lazy!) has Obama's worst at 47% vs Romeny and the Republicans worst at 37% with Palin. This is a very good sign for Obama as despite the conservative history of Virginia, it would appear that he's near a lock for the state as he only needs a small fraction of the swing voters to nab it.