The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[Oakvale]

I'm going to shout "Ronald Regan" every time someone mentions his approval rating in 200-and-ing-9 as an indicator of his electoral chances in 2012. His approval will probably go under 50% - maybe even under 40%, like Reagan - but he'll bounce back.

[Oakvale]

I wonder what kind of bounce he'll get if/when HC passes.

[Oakvale]

You guys are dumb. Guess whose approval ratings dropped faster than Obama's?


Ronald Reagan, he of the 49-state re-election victory.

[Oakvale]

Small national bump in Rasmussen & Gallup. Probably because of the SOTU.

[Oakvale]

It's interesting to note that the states would, if the polling is correct, vote for "someone else." Now, why is it that the national trend shows him with approval generally in the high 40s/low 50s, then?

In general, an incumbent President has about a 50-50 chance of winning re-election if his approval rating is at 44%. (Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com)  Above 44% the likelihood of victory skyrockets to near 100% at 47% approval. Unless something funny is going on (like a favorite son as an opponent in the state) such is likely a good approximation for winning the state. So in a two-way race with a couple of minor parties running candidates who sop up the disaffected vote and allow one of the two main candidates to win with about 49% of the vote, this map of the latest  approval ratings for likely voters (note: Connecticut updated)

If you are looking at this, at this point in time, the statement is false.  Carter had 55%, GHWB, about a month after the capture of Noriega, had an 80%.

No elected president was lower than a 47% approval numbers on Gallup, at this point in time.  Reagan had 49% and was re-elected.  Clinton was as 54% (and was on an upswing) but only had 49% of the vote in the next presidential election.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/presidential-approval-tracker.htm

Either Silver has it wrong, grandly, or you are misquoting him.

I'm assuming he's referring to approval on Election Day...

[Oakvale]

Texas (Rassmussen)
29% approve
62% disapprove
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_governor_elections/texas/election_2010_texas_governor

...Lowest approval in the nation? Doubt it...

[Oakvale]

If MA votes for a Rep in 2012, Obama is done!

LOL, if Obama loses MA i'll eat my hat.

[Oakvale]

Obama hits a new low at Gallup today:

46% Approve
45% Disapprove

Gallup's having ridiculous swings these days.

[Oakvale]

Strategic Vision is back !

Georgia:

37% Approve
50% Disapprove

The results are based on telephone interviews with 800 likely voters in Georgia, aged 18+, and conducted March 5-8, 2010 by telephone. The margin of sampling error is ±3.5 percentage points.

http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/georgia_poll_031510.htm

The huge gap between approval and disapproval indicates the uselessness of that poll. I'd have to show it with the letter "S" (spurious, suspicious, screwy, shady)... except that such would crowd out another and more reliable poll.

I will not use this one. 

I'd reconsider, PBrower. 13% undecided is hardly out of line. It just indicates they don't pistol whip undecideds to leaning the way Scotty apparantly does with his "0% undecided" results. Nor are these numbers overall particularly out of line for GA.

And thank you all for sparing the ubiquitous "of course he'll exclude it cause it's bad for Obama and he's a hack" response.

Mainly because Strategic Vision tends to, uh, make up poll results. Literally.

[Oakvale]

HCR boost, presumably?

[Oakvale]

Per Quinnipiac, Obama back at positive approval in Florida

50% approve

45% disapprove

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1297.xml?ReleaseID=1446

Pretty surprised by that tbh.

[Oakvale]

The "approval rating plus six" theory is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on the forum, up there with some of Naso's stuff.

I wouldn't discount it, actually.

Carter's approval rating, for example, was 37% prior to 1980's election. He got 41% of the vote, an increase of 4%, and that probably would have been higher had Anderson not split the anti-Reagan vote...

Bush's was 34% before the 1992 election and he ended up with 3% of the vote. Clinton's was 54% before the 1996 one, but I'd imagine Perot skewed things for both somewhat.

Bush II's was 48% before 2004's election, and he ended up with almost 51%, which is an increase of 3%.

Oh, and Ford's last recorded before November 1976 was 45% and he ended up with ~48%, although the 48% figure is from July so make your own judgement on how relevant that is. Again, that a 3% increase.

So, 6% might be a tad much, but an increase of 3-4% seems reasonable. A cursory look through Gallup seemed to show that, interestingly enough, the only President whose vote matched their approval exactly was Reagan in 1984 with 58%.


*shrug*

 I'm not an expert, but it's not far-fetched in principle that vote shares can exceed approval ratings.

[Oakvale]

Anyone else seeing a small but noticeable uptick in Obama's approval recently?

Here's the RCP average:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

[Oakvale]

Obama is up to 52% approval on Gallup. The highest of the year I believe.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

The average of polls seems to show a positive trend, too, FWIW.

[Oakvale]

So, Obama's been stuck at about 50-50 for the last six months (at minimum).  What a surprise - I've been saying that myself.

FYI - there's a real reason why this is occurring.

God forbid you actually tell us mere mortals said "real reason".

[Oakvale]

PPP national:
47/48
(+2)/(-4)

Changes since 9-12/7


Do you support or oppose President Obama's health care plan, or do you not have an opinion?
46% Support, 48% Oppose

Do you think George W. Bush or Barack Obama is more responsible for the current state of the economy?
49% Bush, 40% Obama

Would you rather have Barack Obama or George W. Bush as President right now?
50% Obama, 43% Bush

Out of the last 5 Presidents: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, who do you think Barack Obama is most similar to?
41% Clinton, 35% Carter, 6% Reagan, 2% H.W. Bush, 2% W. Bush


http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_National_811.pdf

Jesus, those Bush figures are just depressingly high.

[Oakvale]

Brower, if you think Georgia will go Democratic in 2012 you're delusional.

Obama came pretty close to winning Georgia in 2008, y'know.

I'm just sayin'

[Oakvale]

I'd like to pop into this thread to commend J.J. on being one of the few people reporting the numbers without being a hack.

*leaves*

[Oakvale]

I don't even get the whole "Democrat" thing. I mean, I know it's a sure sign that the person speaking is a hack, but other than that... is it some kind of play on the word "rat"?

[Oakvale]

Obama at 37%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FINALLY!!!!!


harrisinteractive

lol troll

[Oakvale]

Midterm results are in!!

Rasmussen in month before election consistently showed Republicans 3-4 points stronger than they ended up.

...as per 538.

Nearly every single pollster had the Republicans up by 3-4 points.  It wasn't just Rasmussen.  What's your point?

He's referring to the fact that Rasmussen polls overestimated the Republicans by 3-4 points. Consistently.

[Oakvale]

Zogby Interactive: Obama Holds at 42%; Percentage Who Strongly Disapprove at 48%


Approval from Democrats Dips Below 80%

lol

[Oakvale]

Zogby has Obama at 39%. I was all WTF, then I realised it was Zogby.

I'm posting this before Hillaryin2012 discovers the "poll" and fills the thread with yet more hackery.

[Oakvale]

Yeah, there definitely seems to be a positive trend in Obama's numbers - it'd be much more obvious on the RCP average if not for the Fox poll from December skewing things...

[Oakvale]

I find it odd that PPP finds Obama's approval lower than Rasmussen (cue Poundingmydick ranting about "Marshall's pimp").

Also, they must be the first pollster to find Bhoener's approvals in positive territory and a majority of Americans supporting the repeal of HCR. Might be a heavily Republican sample but the guys have earned their stripes and deserve our benefit of the doubt.   

PPP is now John Boehner's pimp, obviously.