The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[pbrower2a]

Actually, Obama's numbers have improved a great deal.  45% on Gallup is survivable. 

I still think he would lose to Romney by a state or two if the election were next month.  That having been said, it's becoming increasingly obvious that he will win with any noticeable economic improvement in 2012.  Romney can beat him in the economic status quo.  If anyone else wins the GOP nomination, they will probably need another 2008-style crash before the election to beat him.

At this point the President would lose if  he failed to campaign for re-election or campaigned ineffectively. The Democrats have yet to harp on Mitt Romney's ideological inconsistencies and his participation in corporate restructuring that on the net destroyed jobs. The Democrats (and especially liberal-leaning media) have unleashed the salvos on other possible GOP nominees  except for Romney. The kid gloves toward him stay on so long as someone else is the front-runner but come off once the campaign begins in earnest.   

In general one can add an average of 6% to the approval rating of an incumbent Governor or Senator at the start of the campaign season to get the percentage of the total vote for the incumbent.  Because the Presidential campaign is basically 50 statewide elections won much as gubernatorial or senatorial races are won, you can expect much the same for an incumbent President. As a strict rule a challenger who ends up winning has a large lead with perhaps lots of undecided and the incumbent cuts into that large lead but not well enough because such a lead for the challenger is simply too much. Of course such shows that the incumbent is wildly unpopular for a good reason -- like being seen as extreme,  inept, aloof, or even corrupt. Add to that, the incumbent almost invariably has shown the ability to campaign for the office and set up a good electoral apparatus, which the challenger rarely does adeptly.

Challengers can carp at will about the incumbent until the nominations are in place. Add to that the incumbent can't operate in campaign mode all the time and is compelled to make decisions, such as budgeting and voting, likely to disappoint some who voted for him. Once the nominations are certain, the incumbent's campaign can dish out the negative campaign against the challenger.  Negative campaigns that question the ability of the challenger to do as effectively may be the last resort -- but that is how Dubya won re-election in 2004.

The argument that the President is an extremist is nothing new; it was used against him in 2008 and proved inadequate. Such is likely to be as ineffective an argument against the President this time as it was against Ronald Reagan in 1984. People who thought that he was disloyal or suspect in loyalty to America, that he was going to take away firearms from people who have veritable fetishes about them, that he was a secret Muslim (with FDR it was that FDR was really a Jew,  which was then about as distant from the political mainstream), or that he would operate as an autocrat are still convinced of that.

The 2012 election will be in part a referendum on foreign policy and economic improvement. The President is solid on foreign policy and military matters. Now for the economy -- can he win with a weak economy?

Absolutely not if the economy tanks. There's just too little to tank. We don't have a corrupt speculative boom  set to implode; the last boom imploded three to four years ago. Slow improvement is the best that anyone can ask for even if it means that things are now less attractive than they were five years ago. FDR was able to get re-elected despite unemployment higher than what President Obama has staring at him.       

[pbrower2a]

Stop comparing Obama to FDR.  FDR saw unemployment drop from 25% in 1933 to 16% in 1936 and he also gained seats in 1934, showing that he and his party had a lot more goodwill with the American people than Obama does. 

Please stop comparing Barack Obama to Herbert Hoover or Jimmy Carter.

Unemployment is a lagging indicator; FDR took just after the economy bottomed out after a three-year economic meltdown; Barack Obama took over before the end of a year-and-a-half economic meltdown. In 1934 the Republican Party and its front groups had not yet developed  the sort of Orwellian propaganda with deep-pockets support behind it that they used in 2010. That is a huge change in politics, and if that change remains effective in 2012, then President Obama will surely be defeated or at least marginalized.

This depression is hardly as severe as that of 1929-1940... but it could easily have been. The first eighteen months of the 2007-2009 meltdown was as severe as the first eighteen months of the 1929-1933 meltdown. Please give this President some credit for the end of the decline, if nothing more than credit for not making things worse and for promoting some gimmicks to stop the economic bleeding. 

[pbrower2a]

Rasmussen Obama (National)

Approve 43%, -1.

Disapprove 58%, +1.

"Strongly Approve" is at 19%, -1.  "Strongly Disapprove" is at 43%, +1.

Typo alert -- it is 43% approve, 56% disapprove.

[pbrower2a]

Obama Average Approval Rating November 2011 (Gallup)

43% Approve

49% Disapprove

Trends for comparison:

Roosevelt: 58/37 (November 1939)

Truman: 54/33 (November 1947) AND 23/61 (November 1951)

Eisenhower: 78/13 (November 1955)

Kennedy: 58/30 (November 1963)

Johnson: 42/46 (November 1967)

Nixon: 49/37 (November 1971)

Ford: 43/45 (November 1975)

Carter: 35/52 (November 1979)

Reagan: 53/37 (November 1983)

Bush I: 55/37 (November 1991)

Clinton: 52/41 (November 1995)

Bush II: 52/45 (November 2003)

Truman was popular in the fall of 47?!  When did he start cratering to fall into the 30's by the summer of 48?

The Korean War. I'm going to guess that as the front line sagged southward so did President Truman's approval rating. The war also got increasingly unpopular as it dragged on.

[pbrower2a]

Truman is a counter example unlikely to ever be repeated.  Everyone was so sure Dewey that Dewey was mouthing platitudes instead of stump speeches for the last month or so, and there was no polling to tell him otherwise.

Which would have given Dewey a narrow 267 EV win (266 were needed in 1948) tho Truman would have still won in the PV.

I think that there was a noticeable change post Watergate.  Both Eisenhower and LBJ had a lower vote percentage that their "low during the year before, (LYB)" approval numbers on Gallup. They had 68% and 73% LYB, respectively.  Truman gained about 12 points on his LYB. Nixon about 11 points.

The LYB gain, with rounding, was since then as follows:

Ford:  9 points
Carter: 9 points
Reagan: 8 points
GHWB: 8 points
Clinton:  7 points
GWB:  5 points

Obama is at 42% on the weekly Gallup.  He improves at just above average with any other president, he wins re-election.  He could, obviously, be in better shape, but it is still winnable. 

The maximum level of popular vote that any President has ever gotten in the last 100 years is about 61%, roughly the level for FDR in 1936, LBJ in 1964, or Nixon in 1972. In all three cases that involved an incumbent defeating a weak challenger, a scenario still possible in 2012.

The minimum for an incumbent President seeking re-election despite three years of economic meltdown (Hoover 1932) or in the wake of debacles of foreign policy (Carter 1980) is around 40%. Anyone who thinks that the President is going to do better than FDR in 1936  or worse than Hoover in 1932 is on shaky ground. As for Eisenhower and LBJ, there was no way in which Ike was going to win 63% of the popular vote (57% was fine enough for him, and campaigning would have brought more risk than reward), and the 73% approval rating was late in 1963 during his political honeymoon.

Truman would have been defeated badly had the Reds (no, not the Cincinnati variety) had been closing in on some ROK redoubt in a southern corner of the country with Mao and Kim il-Sung boasting that "Liberation comes next to Japan! Death to the fascist running-dog Hirohito!" Of course such is contrafactual as the war did not begin until 1950.

OK -- President Obama so far is involved in some foreign-policy debacles, but those so far are the debacles that he inflicted upon Osama bin Laden and let happen to Muammar Qaddafi. It is still possible that an economic meltdown can happen between now and November, but time is running out for that. There's no speculative boom to go bust while Obama is President. Slow growth in hard times? FDR won big in 1936 under those circumstances.

What is different this time is the Citizens United decision that effectively allows political front groups to throw unlimited funds into any political effort, including propaganda campaigns intended to weaken the support of any politician that such a front group wants defeated, as well as into political campaigns.     

Improving economic conditions (no given) clearly seal a re-election of President Obama against a weak opponent (nearly a given). 

[pbrower2a]

Truman is a counter example unlikely to ever be repeated.  Everyone was so sure Dewey that Dewey was mouthing platitudes instead of stump speeches for the last month or so, and there was no polling to tell him otherwise.

Which would have given Dewey a narrow 267 EV win (266 were needed in 1948) tho Truman would have still won in the PV.

I think that there was a noticeable change post Watergate.  Both Eisenhower and LBJ had a lower vote percentage that their "low during the year before, (LYB)" approval numbers on Gallup. They had 68% and 73% LYB, respectively.  Truman gained about 12 points on his LYB. Nixon about 11 points.

The LYB gain, with rounding, was since then as follows:

Ford:  9 points
Carter: 9 points
Reagan: 8 points
GHWB: 8 points
Clinton:  7 points
GWB:  5 points

Obama is at 42% on the weekly Gallup.  He improves at just above average with any other president, he wins re-election.  He could, obviously, be in better shape, but it is still winnable. 

The maximum level of popular vote that any President has ever gotten in the last 100 years is about 61%, roughly the level for FDR in 1936, LBJ in 1964, or Nixon in 1972. In all three cases that involved an incumbent defeating a weak challenger, a scenario still possible in 2012.

The minimum for an incumbent President seeking re-election despite three years of economic meltdown (Hoover 1932) or in the wake of debacles of foreign policy (Carter 1980) is around 40%. Anyone who thinks that the President is going to do better than FDR in 1936  or worse than Hoover in 1932 is on shaky ground. As for Eisenhower and LBJ, there was no way in which Ike was going to win 63% of the popular vote (57% was fine enough for him, and campaigning would have brought more risk than reward), and the 73% approval rating was late in 1963 during his political honeymoon.

Truman would have been defeated badly had the Reds (no, not the Cincinnati variety) had been closing in on some ROK redoubt in a southern corner of the country with Mao and Kim il-Sung boasting that "Liberation comes next to Japan! Death to the fascist running-dog Hirohito!" Of course such is contrafactual as the war did not begin until 1950.

OK -- President Obama so far is involved in some foreign-policy debacles, but those so far are the debacles that he inflicted upon Osama bin Laden and let happen to Muammar Qaddafi. It is still possible that an economic meltdown can happen between now and November, but time is running out for that. There's no speculative boom to go bust while Obama is President. Slow growth in hard times? FDR won big in 1936 under those circumstances.

FDR saw 13% GDP growth and 7% decline in unemployment in 1936. 

Any significant growth in GDP and decline in unemployment will seal re-election of the President. If President Obama could get unemployment down to 3% and get 13% growth in GDP, then he would win back the Carter-but-not-Obama vote while strengthening his gains elsewhere and winning 61% of the popular vote and about 520 electoral votes.

I may be carrying a political analogue from a different place that isn't so popular here, but political and economic realities of this decade may have more in common with those of 75-80 years ago than with those of ten years ago. The closest analogue to the still-remembered financial meltdown of 2007-2009 is the first half of economic implosion of 1929-1932.

FDR won big in 1936 because (1) he was a masterful politician, (2) the GOP alternative was weak, (3) even if he could not induce the economy to fully leave the Great Depression he could get a solid start (4) against an economic nightmare largely attributed to the Other Party.  2012 may be the only analogue in any respect to 1936 since the 1940s because we have been spared any economic meltdown that in any way resembles that of even the first half of 1929-1932.

The most favorable scenario that I see for the President is roughly a 55-45 split of the popular vote and about 400-440 electoral votes with Texas as the rough difference between 400 and 440 electoral votes. Based on what I see in the generic ballot for Congress in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (the other state for which I have polling data on that is Montana, and that is on an at-large election)  I now predict that the Republicans will lose the House of Representatives. 

Can President Obama lose? He most certainly can -- if he has a personal scandal, if he faces a military/diplomatic debacle, or if the economy goes into a tailspin. But with none of those he (1) has already shown himself a masterful politician capable of taking away votes that the Other Side used to think reliably 'theirs', (2) facing severely-flawed opposition, and  (3-4) having real growth during economic hard times, hard times the result of catastrophic policies of the previous Administration. The GOP has a bigger problem with credibility now than it did going into the 2010 elections because it has shown that it learned nothing from its defeats in 2006 and 2008 that would force it to change its approaches to the issues of the time.     

[pbrower2a]

This should scare Republicans:

Note that this is among likely voters in the Republican caucuses in Iowa:

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http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_IA_1218925.pdf

[pbrower2a]

Rasmussen Obama (National)

Approve 45%, -2.

Disapprove 54%, +2.

"Strongly Approve" is at 23%, -3.  "Strongly Disapprove" is at 41%, +3.


Probably holiday related bad numbers.

Preferentially sampling people who don't celebrate Christmas?

Sorta. People with strong family structures tend to be more Republican, and, as a result, travel away from home more often during the Christmas season.

...and non-Christians who don't celebrate Christmas

I wouldn't trust any poll taken between the winter solstice and January 3

[pbrower2a]

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http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/01/obama-up-5-on-romney-nationally.html#more

[pbrower2a]

View my blog for information about Obama's 4 years

voterepublican12.blogspot.com/

Really, disinformation.

The "Iran likes Obama" picture is an obvious fraud.

[pbrower2a]

Good economic news bounce must be here. Time for Obama to start putting out the positive ads, he needs to start early.

While I doubt that the 'Halftime in America' ad was meant to be seen as such (partly because while Clint Eastwood's politics may be many things, some of them admirable, conventional American liberalism has never seemed to be one of them), there may be something to the idea that it's having this sort of effect.

It could be that within a few years conservatism will reappear vastly different from what it is now. The contemporary Right that has absorbed demagoguery and irrationality may be on its way out.

[pbrower2a]

Right everything is going perfect for Obama and you shouldn't have anything to worry about. It sounds like your party is in great shape and the GOP is done forever. You're right on with that. Look at 2000 which was closer ago than 1984. I'm not betting on Romney winning Oregon but it should be competitive.

For President Obama to lose there would have to be economic, military, or diplomatic disasters that ideologues and partisan hacks can see happening as vividly as drunks can see "pink effeluntsh, osshifer" after some cop pulls them over for driving erratically. In essence he has pleased the people who voted for him, such ordinarily enough to win re-election after a previous election that was not a hair-thin victory. He is a proved master as a campaigner; barring a disaster, all that he must do to win is to get the formidable campaign machine of 2008 out of mothballs and make clear that he has an agenda for a Second Term.

Unless high petroleum prices suddenly discredit this President he seems likely to win re-election with essentially the same sort of election as in 2008. My seat-of-the-pants estimate is 370 electoral votes with a standard deviation of 30.

   

[pbrower2a]

Obama at 42-53 approval in Kansas, says SurveyUSA:

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=0817cb1b-e6e3-4c23-b86a-9104d4230d45

That is very close to the voting result in Kansas in 2008. Incumbents usually gain an average of 6% in voting share from early approval ratings; should such hold in Kansas, then the President would barely lose the State. In essence President Obama wins Kansas only in the wake of a collapse of the Republican nominee.

[pbrower2a]

I don't know why smart people pay so much attention to polls.

They show things happening before they manifest themselves in  an election. If the incumbent President had approval ratings in the 30s, then that would be evidence that he isn't up to the job and that the usual challenger would defeat him handily. Maybe he would spare himself the embarrassment of being trounced in an election.

Think of how unpopular such senators as Rick Santorum was in 2006 and Blanche Lincoln was in 2010.

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1. That says much more about Ronald Reagan than about Ronald Reagan than about Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan was known as "the Great Communicator" for convincing people that he was right for the time.

2. Nobody could have predicted the Iranian hostage situation that slowly dragged down support for the President.

3. Jimmy Carter had won the Presidency in 1976 by putting together a Democratic coalition that included a large number of southern white people who are best described as the sorts who voted for George Wallace in 1968. Carter won a bunch of states that have never since voted for any Democratic nominee for President -- Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. Carter won as a 'good 'ol boy" against a weak d@mnyankee incumbent who still won the "Rockefeller Republicans" . Reagan won those over while keeping the Rockefeller Republicans.

4. Generational change then favored Republicans about as it now favors Democrats. In 1980 the youngest voters were no longer Baby Boomers; they were Generation X which has shown itself one of the most conservative generations ever. They were much more conservative on economic issues and law-and-order than the generations that had the bulk of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam-era veterans. The generation then more conservative than Generation X was the Lost Generation born in the 19th Century.  Elections are won on margins.

5. Presidential politics have practically inverted the reality of 1976. Jimmy Carter is the last Democratic President to have won despite losing California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, and New Jersey. If anything President Obama has done much to put together most parts of the Eisenhower coalition. Tellingly, Barack Obama won only one state (North Carolina) that Dwight Eisenhower ever lost.

6. The Romney-Reagan analogy is ludicrous. Mitt Romney is a trimming opportunist who has changed his views not so much to fit changing reality (which one would excuse) instead of someone who like Reagan convinced people that his austere conservatism would solve big problems. Mitt Romney has changed his tune as he finds a different audience, which is far less effective.

7. President Barack Obama is probably best described as a left-wing version of Ronald Reagan. If you thought that Ronald Reagan was the Great Communicator, then wait until you meet Barack Obama.

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Only in the event of

(1) a breaking scandal -- which would already manifest itself in polls because there would be indications in secretiveness and inexplicable eccentricities of policy-making

(2) a sudden economic meltdown for which there is no apparent cause -- as there is no speculative boom about to go bust that can devalue the assets of home owners or people recently snookered into buying securities

(3) a military or diplomatic debacle -- except that the President is very cautious, and he cooperates well with the armed forces and the intelligence agencies

(4) bungled treatment of a natural disaster -- just think of Hurricane Katrina. Except that President Obama has well treated tornado outbreaks for which there is no advanced warning.  

(5) extremely erratic behavior better explained in DMS-IV than in normal discussion of politics.

Wise people do not bet on long-shots unless they see a huge bargain -- let's say a race horse that is given 100-1 chances that are really 20-1.  I see the President having roughly 50-50 chances now in six of states (Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia) different enough that there is no appeal that wins them all without cutting into overall support for the President. Basically a model based on exact 50-50 chances in those states alone gives the President 63 chances in 64 of winning re-election. Something must change drastically for Mitt Romney to have a better chance.

  

[pbrower2a]

Truly the gay marriage announcement has doomed Obama's hopes of re-election. Witness his seven po--- uh, one point statistically insignificant gain on Romney in Gallup's tracker.

It's almost as if the announcement will have a negligible effect!

The homophobes were never going to vote for President Obama anyway. But that said, President Obama consolidated some support that he might never have otherwise gotten.

In a narrow election something inconvenient  but necessary can work. LGBT rights has become a positive issue in a bunch of states best described as moderate-to-liberal... Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, maybe Indiana and Florida...

GROW UP, AMERICA!

God really did make Adam and Steve and still loves them in knowledge of what they do with each other if He made them gay. 

[pbrower2a]

Sure. And this strange little world looks a lot like Earth, 2012. Where Obama has nothing to show for three and a half years in office but Americans still love the guy. It is pretty strange, isn't it?

1. Putting an end to the most severe and dangerous economic meltdown in nearly 80 years.

2. Much legislative activity.

3. American involvement in Iraq ended.

4. American involvement in Afghanistan winding down.

5. Anti-American sentiments vastly reduced.

6. Good handling of the Arab Spring.

7. Osama bin Ladin whacked. 

[pbrower2a]

This recession is fundamentally different from the 70s and 80s ones, because those were the results of  the cyclical business cycle. This was the result of a financial crisis, and financial crises almost always result in low growth recoveries.

Right. The late 2007 - early 2009 meltdown looks much like (at least in severity and cause) to the first half of the late 1929 - late 1932 meltdown. America had been spared financial meltdowns because of Depression-era reforms that, so long as they were kept in place, prevented the corruption and recklessness that made possible the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929 and ensuing nastiness. Repeal of Glass-Steagall was a bad idea.  The 'Ownership Society' of Dubya proved a destructive hustle based on overpriced real estate and predatory lending.

Other downturns may be linked to the end of big construction projects such as giant bridges and dams. Such downturns allow recoveries in part from reduced costs of doing business and the eventual start of new such projects. The Golden Gate, Mackinac, and Verrazzano Bridges pay for themselves. The financial meltdown of 2007-2009 simply devoured capital with less-than-full compensation.

Lending at its best is in essence the recycling of capital with a little profit to the lender. The competent lender typically lends the proceeds of a successful loan as it is paid off to a new borrower. Meyer Rothschild established a wise principle: Never make a loan unless the loan is good for the borrower (typically for starting or enlarging a business). Such is not charity except by contrast to loan-shark activities that inevitably hurt the borrower. People doing well by borrowing to promote their own economic gain are good clients for repeated borrowings or become repositories of the capital for other loans.

A meltdown that destroyed the accumulation of roughly 15 years of capital formation will not be undone quickly. Anyone who expects otherwise is a visionary... fool.