The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[Mr.Phips]

Things will be very different in November 2012. One will be the economy -- probably better because President Obama greatly harmed the economy.

Another will be that if we see GOP will support fiscal responsibility, unlike 2002-06 and individual freedom. We will also see if those efforts fall to Obama's veto pen.

Why would the economy be better because Obama harmed it?  That makes no sense.

Also, anything Republicans pass in the House will likely die in the Senate. 

[Mr.Phips]

Obama approval rating September 2010 (gallup):

45% Approve

47% Disapprove

Trends for comparison:

Carter: 45/39 (September 1978)

Reagan: 42/48 (September 1982)

Bush I: 72/18 (September 1990)

Clinton: 42/52 (September 1994)

Bush II: 67/28 (September 2002)

Oh, look.

Reagan too.

Indeed, but at the moment I'm more inclined to believe that Obama will be more like Clinton than a Democratic Reagan. That'll change in the next 2 years, probably.

So Obama spends his second term deregulating the financial sector?

[Mr.Phips]

I'll be honest...Nevada and Colorado seem to be trending left.

Definately.  Those were states that Obama would have carried in 2008 even if he had lost the popular vote to McCain(which looked possible for a while in September).

[Mr.Phips]

An econometrist at Yale has a model for predicting the results of the Presidency and the House. Not surprisingly, President Obama would have to fail or face an political calamity (scandal, economic collapse, or diplomatic/military debacle) to lose in 2012. Paradoxically, even if he loses the battle to allow the rescission of the Dubya-era tax cuts for the wealthy, he benefits politically from a better economic reality for himself than otherwise (unless he has to impose taxes to undo the budgetary effects of the tax cut).

http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/vote2012/index2.htm

Here's  Ray Fair's model based on recent quantitative easing -- a very expansionary model:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

President Obama wins an Eisenhower-style landslide in the popular vote, and the electoral vote probably hinges on Texas with 400-435 electoral votes.  Republicans barely hold onto the House.

Tampering with the numbers a bit, I could suggest what happens if America experiences three more months of economic growth larger than average but stagnation in 2012:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

President Obama wins an Eisenhower-style landslide in the popular vote, and the electoral vote probably hinges on Texas with 400-435 electoral votes. Democrats barely win back the House.

..............

It's the more months of above-average growth that overpowers the later stagnation and even gives the Democrats a big chance to win back the House of Representatives.  In any event, I predict that America will not have a speculative boom (the capital just isn't there and the spirit needed for one died around 2005). What remains is the safest way to create prosperity, which is long-term, hands-on, can't-run-from investments in small businesses or government investment in infrastructure that don't lead to speculative booms and busts.  I see no strong, charismatic candidate from the GOP to counteract a President who so far shows most of the political skills of... Ronald Reagan.

I'm not going to draw any maps based on this projection; I could never predict whether the results of a 56-44 split of the nationwide popular vote would be that President Obama would win 70% of the popular vote in California and 45% of the popular vote in Texas or 62% of the popular vote in California and 51% of the popular vote in Texas.

Why Texas? Because it has no obvious analogue in any other state in ethnic mix, because it is politically unique, and because it would probably follow such states as Missouri, Georgia, Montana, South Carolina, and maybe Arizona before the Clinton-but-not-Obama states that have voted in a bloc since 1992 and will likely do so in 2012.  

Fair's model projected that George HW Bush would get 56% of the vote in 1992.  He doesnt seem to take lagging indicators like the unemployment rate into account.  He also doesnt take approval ratings into account, which is why he overstated the Republican share of the vote in 2008 by 2%.

[Mr.Phips]

Of course, Fair's model did not take Ross Perot into account, as it could never predict a third-party candidacy. Add the votes for GHWB and Perot and you get roughly 56%. Did Perot hurt Bush more than Clinton? It can't take into account cultural shifts within Parties, as in the simultaneous disappearance of the liberal Republicans from the GOP with the movement of low-income white people from the Democratic party to the Republican Party.

Perot didnt hurt Bush very much.  Exit polling said Perot voters were split between Clinton and Bush.

[Mr.Phips]

PPP, NC

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NC_1123.pdf

One of the closest states in 2008, and as things look, it will be very close in 2012. I am now assigning only a 5% likely gain for 45% Obama can win without North Carolina, but can't lose with it. He would lose to some candidates, tie with some, and win against some others in the Tarheel State.

Key:


<40% with Disapproval Higher: 40% Orange (50% if 60%-69% or higher disapproval); 90% red if >70%
40-42% with Disapproval Higher: 50% Yellow  
43% to 45% with Disapproval Higher: 40% Yellow  
46-49% with Disapproval Higher: 30% Yellow  
<50% with Approval Equal: 10% Yellow (really white)
<50%  Approval greater: 30% Green
50-55%: 40% Green
56-59%: 60% Green
60%+: 80% Green
DC, what else could you expect?

Months (All polls are from 2010):

A -  January     G -  July
B -  February   H -  August
C -  March        I -  September
D -  April          J  -  October
E -  May           K -  November
F -   June         L -   December

 

S - suspect poll (examples for such a qualification: strange crosstabs, likely inversion of the report (for inversions, only for polls above 55% or below 45%...  let's say Vermont 35% approval or Oklahoma 65% approval), or more than 10% undecided. Anyone who suggests that a poll is suspect must explain why it is suspect.

Partisan polls and polls for special interests (trade associations, labor unions, ethnic associations) are excluded.

Z- no recent poll

MY CURRENT PREDICTION OF THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

(before any campaigning begins in earnest)

assuming no significant changes before early 2012 -- snicker, snicker!

District of Columbia, assumed to be about a 90% win for Obama,                  
deep red                  Obama 10% margin or greater
medium red              Obama, 5-9.9% margin  
pale red                   Obama, margin under 5%
white                        too close to call (margin 1% or less)
pale blue                  Republican  under 5%  
medium blue             Republican  5-9.9% margin
deep blue                 Republican over 10%  



44% approval is roughly the break-even  point (50/50) for an incumbent's win.  I add 6% for approval between 40% and 46%, 5% at 46%, 4% between 47% and 50%, 3% for 51%, 2% for 52% or 53%, 1% for 54% and nothing above 55% or below 40% for an estimate of the vote.

 This model applies only to incumbents, who have plenty of advantages but not enough to rescue an unqualified failure.

*Note that I have expanded the "too close to call" to include those states  in which the incumbent President's approval rating is 43% to 45%.

I dont get this "44% rule" that you have.  Gerald Ford had an approval rating of about 47% in 1976 and still couldnt get reelected.  HW Bush had an approval rating of around 40% and lost in a landslide. 

[Mr.Phips]

Pbrower, no one in America even knows or cares about the Ryan budget. Please get out of your political bubble for once and look at things objectively.

Maybe not in the Presidential race. For Congressional races -- maybe. Democratic challengers are going to run against it, and in many districts, Republicans are going to try to run from it. ordinarily a politician runs on his record and wins or runs from his record and loses.

In the Presidential election, we all know what event has more immediate influence. The WaPo poll after May 1, 2011 suggests that President Obama would win Virginia by something close to a 57-40 margin (and that is charitable to Republicans). Virginia is close to the national average in voting.

Guess which President was last to win 57% of the popular vote as an incumbent! Reagan won 59%, Nixon 60%, and LBJ 61%.

Dwight Eisenhower, 1956.  1956 was not a pretty year for Democrats. I cannot predict how a 57-43 split of the popular vote would manifest itself in electoral votes, so I can't give a map of such an event. 55-45 likely solidifies Indiana and North Carolina and flips at the least the following states from 2008:

Arizona
Georgia
Missouri
Montana

Ike won 457 electoral votes in 1956 and would have probably won both Alaska and Hawaii if those two states had been voting. Maybe even DC because the Democrats that year had the segregationist vote tied up.
  

1956 was a pretty good year for Democrats downballot.

[Mr.Phips]

The only difference between the two is that things are not looking up for Obama. In fact, there's a chance things will get worse. He has the luxury of the GOP running a bunch of crazies that he could beat with a 40% approval rating on election day.

No President gets reelected with a 40% approval rating. 

[Mr.Phips]

The only difference between the two is that things are not looking up for Obama. In fact, there's a chance things will get worse. He has the luxury of the GOP running a bunch of crazies that he could beat with a 40% approval rating on election day.

No President gets reelected with a 40% approval rating. 

Prove it.

Here:

2004 Bush 48% Approval Won Reelection
1996 Clinton 54% Approval Won Reelection
1992 Bush 34% Approval Lost Reelection
1984 Reagan 58% Approval Won Reelection
1980 Carter 37% Approval Lost Reelection
1976 Ford 45% Approval Lost Reelection
1972 Nixon 56% Approval Won Reelection
1964 Johnson 74% Approval Won Reelection
1956 Eisenhower 68% Approval Won Reelection
1948 Truman stopped polling after July 1948

[Mr.Phips]

The only difference between the two is that things are not looking up for Obama. In fact, there's a chance things will get worse. He has the luxury of the GOP running a bunch of crazies that he could beat with a 40% approval rating on election day.

No President gets reelected with a 40% approval rating. 

Prove it.

Here:

2004 Bush 48% Approval Won Reelection
1996 Clinton 54% Approval Won Reelection
1992 Bush 34% Approval Lost Reelection
1984 Reagan 58% Approval Won Reelection
1980 Carter 37% Approval Lost Reelection
1976 Ford 45% Approval Lost Reelection
1972 Nixon 56% Approval Won Reelection
1964 Johnson 74% Approval Won Reelection
1956 Eisenhower 68% Approval Won Reelection
1948 Truman stopped polling after July 1948

Looking at Bush and Ford, looks like 46-47% is the limit.

About right.

Having an effective campaign apparatus and not having an effective campaign apparatus may have been the difference between Ford 1976 and Bush 2004. Ford had no idea of how to run an effective campaign beyond a Congressional district, and the effective campaign apparatus (CREEP) of Nixon in 1972 was unusable. The Ford campaign made incredible blunders in using its resources. Ford at most would have won a nailbiter; he was not a great President, and the inflationary economy in a recession (stagflation) was not good for convincing anyone of the economic stewardship of the Administration. Dubya may have been a dreadful President, but the damage yet to do its damage had yet to manifest itself, and he got re-elected. He had been elected... sort of... but his campaign machine knew what to do.  

Add 5% to the polling for 2004 and you get the electoral result. Add 3% to the polling for 1976 and you get the result. Such is the difference between a President who had no idea of how to get elected outside a Congressional district and one had shown that he could be elected beforehand. (Of course, had the Iraq war gone badly or the speculative boom gone bust before the election, then he would have lost. He could have lost much like Jimmy Carter in 1976 had such happened).

The others:

1952 -- Dwight Eisenhower was wildly popular, but a natural ceiling of about 62% of the popular vote exists for any incumbent. Eisenhower didn't have much of a campaign, and didn't need one against the Democrat that he had defeated handily. Eisenhower fell short of that campaign largely because Southern segregationists distrusted him. They were morally wrong, but right about their observation.

1964 -- LBJ ran against someone easily depicted as a reckless extremist. He didn't need much of a campaign. The 62% ceiling for an incumbent President applies.

1972 -- Even with a ruthless campaign, Nixon was able to get 'only' about a 5% gain against someone that his campaign (and much else) depicted as an extremist.

1976 -- See above. Ford could have won against a weak challenger who wasn't that different in ideology.

1980 -- The Carter Presidency was certifiably of the weakest in post-WWII history, with few achievements to create a record and stagflation to wreck whatever chance he had of getting re-elected. The Carter campaign did the best that it could with the material that it had, gaining about 4% in the popular vote. There was an independent candidate (John Anderson) who might have cut into his vote share. Independent and third-party candidates can muck things up, and John Anderson may have won many votes of disgruntled Carter voters from 1976 who couldn't quite vote for Ronald Reagan. This one gets murky beyond saying that Carter would never have won in 1980.

1984 -- Reagan won about 58% of the popular vote, which is much less than the norm for the landslide in electoral votes that he got. It's hard to remember the re-election campaign of Ronald Reagan, so it probably wasn't great. Walter Mondale was no extremist -- a very conventional Democrat -- so the electoral circumstances weren't quite those of 1964 or 1972. No gain -- but a President who achieves his promises will win.

1992 and 1996 -- Third-party and independent candidacies muck things up. I can draw no conclusions, except that Bill Clinton would have won a bigger share of the popular vote without Ross Perot around.

2004. See above.

2012. Just watch events unfold. The electoral machine of Barack Obama and a repetition of the proved competence of this politician as a campaigner should give him about a 5% gain against his approval rating against someone that his staff can't dismiss as an extremist (probably Romney, maybe Huntsman, Pawlenty, Giuliani, or Huckabee) or about 7% against someone that his campaign can depict as an extremist (names withheld for reasons of decency). Of course opponents count, but some things about this President really are set in stone.  

Obama is vastly overrated as a campaigner.  If he was that great, he would have been able to go out in 2010 and sharply reduce Democratic losses.  In 2008, he ran a mediocre campaign and was only saved by the fact that the unemployment rate increased by over a percentage point during the campaign and that consumer confidence was so low.  No incumbent party survives that. 

[Mr.Phips]

The only difference between the two is that things are not looking up for Obama. In fact, there's a chance things will get worse. He has the luxury of the GOP running a bunch of crazies that he could beat with a 40% approval rating on election day.

No President gets reelected with a 40% approval rating. 

Prove it.

Here:

2004 Bush 48% Approval Won Reelection
1996 Clinton 54% Approval Won Reelection
1992 Bush 34% Approval Lost Reelection
1984 Reagan 58% Approval Won Reelection
1980 Carter 37% Approval Lost Reelection
1976 Ford 45% Approval Lost Reelection
1972 Nixon 56% Approval Won Reelection
1964 Johnson 74% Approval Won Reelection
1956 Eisenhower 68% Approval Won Reelection
1948 Truman stopped polling after July 1948

Looking at Bush and Ford, looks like 46-47% is the limit.

About right.

Having an effective campaign apparatus and not having an effective campaign apparatus may have been the difference between Ford 1976 and Bush 2004. Ford had no idea of how to run an effective campaign beyond a Congressional district, and the effective campaign apparatus (CREEP) of Nixon in 1972 was unusable. The Ford campaign made incredible blunders in using its resources. Ford at most would have won a nailbiter; he was not a great President, and the inflationary economy in a recession (stagflation) was not good for convincing anyone of the economic stewardship of the Administration. Dubya may have been a dreadful President, but the damage yet to do its damage had yet to manifest itself, and he got re-elected. He had been elected... sort of... but his campaign machine knew what to do.  

Add 5% to the polling for 2004 and you get the electoral result. Add 3% to the polling for 1976 and you get the result. Such is the difference between a President who had no idea of how to get elected outside a Congressional district and one had shown that he could be elected beforehand. (Of course, had the Iraq war gone badly or the speculative boom gone bust before the election, then he would have lost. He could have lost much like Jimmy Carter in 1976 had such happened).

The others:

1952 -- Dwight Eisenhower was wildly popular, but a natural ceiling of about 62% of the popular vote exists for any incumbent. Eisenhower didn't have much of a campaign, and didn't need one against the Democrat that he had defeated handily. Eisenhower fell short of that campaign largely because Southern segregationists distrusted him. They were morally wrong, but right about their observation.

1964 -- LBJ ran against someone easily depicted as a reckless extremist. He didn't need much of a campaign. The 62% ceiling for an incumbent President applies.

1972 -- Even with a ruthless campaign, Nixon was able to get 'only' about a 5% gain against someone that his campaign (and much else) depicted as an extremist.

1976 -- See above. Ford could have won against a weak challenger who wasn't that different in ideology.

1980 -- The Carter Presidency was certifiably of the weakest in post-WWII history, with few achievements to create a record and stagflation to wreck whatever chance he had of getting re-elected. The Carter campaign did the best that it could with the material that it had, gaining about 4% in the popular vote. There was an independent candidate (John Anderson) who might have cut into his vote share. Independent and third-party candidates can muck things up, and John Anderson may have won many votes of disgruntled Carter voters from 1976 who couldn't quite vote for Ronald Reagan. This one gets murky beyond saying that Carter would never have won in 1980.

1984 -- Reagan won about 58% of the popular vote, which is much less than the norm for the landslide in electoral votes that he got. It's hard to remember the re-election campaign of Ronald Reagan, so it probably wasn't great. Walter Mondale was no extremist -- a very conventional Democrat -- so the electoral circumstances weren't quite those of 1964 or 1972. No gain -- but a President who achieves his promises will win.

1992 and 1996 -- Third-party and independent candidacies muck things up. I can draw no conclusions, except that Bill Clinton would have won a bigger share of the popular vote without Ross Perot around.

2004. See above.

2012. Just watch events unfold. The electoral machine of Barack Obama and a repetition of the proved competence of this politician as a campaigner should give him about a 5% gain against his approval rating against someone that his staff can't dismiss as an extremist (probably Romney, maybe Huntsman, Pawlenty, Giuliani, or Huckabee) or about 7% against someone that his campaign can depict as an extremist (names withheld for reasons of decency). Of course opponents count, but some things about this President really are set in stone.  

Obama is vastly overrated as a campaigner.  If he was that great, he would have been able to go out in 2010 and sharply reduce Democratic losses.  In 2008, he ran a mediocre campaign and was only saved by the fact that the unemployment rate increased by over a percentage point during the campaign and that consumer confidence was so low.  No incumbent party survives that. 

Overrated?

1. He won Indiana, a state that Republican nominees for President simply do not lose. Sure, the President won under freakish circumstances, but the state was close all summer and fall.

2. He won Virginia, a state that Republican nominees for President simply do not lose, by a substantial margin. Virginia did not have one of the most ravaged economies in America.

3. He won North Carolina, a state that democrats had largely written off since 1980.

4. He did unusually well in Suburbia, suggesting that he had found a weakness in the usual appeals of Republicans in Suburbia -- tax cuts, tax cuts, and more tax cuts because your boss will be impressed.

This politician knows how to recognize weaknesses in his opposition and exploit them for every advantage more effectively than the usual nominee. He did not seek out opportunities that no longer existed.  Basically, he didn't campaign to win states that were out of reach that Bill Clinton won handily.

But even if you see his weaknesses as a politician -- basically that he can't successfully appeal to people in rural and small-town America -- you must admit that his campaign applied advertising funds effectively, cutting them off when they were futile and where the President was so far ahead (in states) that further saturation might be the difference between winning 56% of the vote and 59% of the vote.

He does not win where government services are available cheaply, so I expect him to do badly in the Great Plains states.

2010 -- he campaigned little. He was too busy with Congress. In 2012 that will be very different.

He didnt win Indiana and Virginia because he is a good politician or campaigner, he won because the economy was so bad nationally. 

[Mr.Phips]

The only difference between the two is that things are not looking up for Obama. In fact, there's a chance things will get worse. He has the luxury of the GOP running a bunch of crazies that he could beat with a 40% approval rating on election day.

No President gets reelected with a 40% approval rating. 

Prove it.

Here:

2004 Bush 48% Approval Won Reelection
1996 Clinton 54% Approval Won Reelection
1992 Bush 34% Approval Lost Reelection
1984 Reagan 58% Approval Won Reelection
1980 Carter 37% Approval Lost Reelection
1976 Ford 45% Approval Lost Reelection
1972 Nixon 56% Approval Won Reelection
1964 Johnson 74% Approval Won Reelection
1956 Eisenhower 68% Approval Won Reelection
1948 Truman stopped polling after July 1948

You have look at when they had these numbers.  Both Reagan and Clinton hit 37% in their first term, on Gallup.  Both were in an upswing at this point, well off their lows.

They had these numbers in October of their reelection for the most part. 

[Mr.Phips]

Oh, please, you had the same situation with Reagan, a small majority in the Senate and an increasingly hostile House; his attempts to run against Tip O'Neil failed.  As for the Tea Party, as noted, they didn't get everything they wanted, because of the Senate.

Obama would have to do what Clinton did, and triangulate.  When he tried with Democrats in the Senate, he got shot down.  Then he lapsed into passivity.

I doubt that this shift to the GOP is reversible.  Further, Obama, the incumbent, seems to be much less popular than Obama the candidate.  As for seniors, Obama was the one promoting Medicare cuts, and Obamacare, one he said would solve everything, hasn't.

People are wiser to how Obama will do as president, because they've him do it for four years (in 2012).  "Yes we can" is rapidly becoming "No he hasn't."  He's losing groups across the boards; he's only up with a majority with Democrats, African Americans, and people with advanced degrees.  There is a fair amount of over in that group.

If the economy improves by January, he had good shot; if after that, the economy doesn't clear up, he's done for.

Obama basically has to get the economy improving by the second quarter of next year.  If the economy starts to turn around in the summer of 2012, it will be too late.  People's opinions about the economy harden sometime between March and June of an election year.

[Mr.Phips]

Oh, please, you had the same situation with Reagan, a small majority in the Senate and an increasingly hostile House; his attempts to run against Tip O'Neil failed.  As for the Tea Party, as noted, they didn't get everything they wanted, because of the Senate.

Obama would have to do what Clinton did, and triangulate.  When he tried with Democrats in the Senate, he got shot down.  Then he lapsed into passivity.

I doubt that this shift to the GOP is reversible.  Further, Obama, the incumbent, seems to be much less popular than Obama the candidate.  As for seniors, Obama was the one promoting Medicare cuts, and Obamacare, one he said would solve everything, hasn't.

People are wiser to how Obama will do as president, because they've him do it for four years (in 2012).  "Yes we can" is rapidly becoming "No he hasn't."  He's losing groups across the boards; he's only up with a majority with Democrats, African Americans, and people with advanced degrees.  There is a fair amount of over in that group.

If the economy improves by January, he had good shot; if after that, the economy doesn't clear up, he's done for.

Obama basically has to get the economy improving by the second quarter of next year.  If the economy starts to turn around in the summer of 2012, it will be too late.  People's opinions about the economy harden sometime between March and June of an election year.

Yes dear, we all know. That's why McCain won in '08.

Do you not follow economics at all?  The economy was already horrid in the beginning of 2008, with unemployment rising from 4.5% in late 2007 to 5.5% in June 2008.  Not to mention that the economy contracted by -.2% in the first half of 2008.  No incumbent party survives numbers like that.  

[Mr.Phips]

Is Obama improving his numbers???

Not on Rasmussen.  He was actually a bit stronger at the start of the week.

On Gallup, he's off his lows but still within the MOE.  I'm paying particular attention to when he "troughs," i.e. hit his low point and starts recovering.  He might have, but the last time it looked like he "might" have, he fell back.

Yes, I'm expecting Obama to recover prior to the election.  His low numbers are survivable, though it is getting close to the point of no return.

He's going to need to get back to at least 48% by next fall if he is going to win reelection. 

[Mr.Phips]

A realistic Obama Morning in America 2.0 ceiling:

*6.9% Unemployment on Election Day, >3.0 million new jobs created July-September 2012*

Obama/Biden 453 EV/ 58.8% PV
Perry/Christie  85 EV/ 40.6% PV

6.9% unemployment in October 2012 is not realistic.  You would need about 450,000 jobs created per month over the next year and GDP growth near 10% every quarter through the third of 2012.

[Mr.Phips]

Nobody can predict who the 'likely voters' are.  

Perhaps Muon2 can enlighten you on how statistics work. "Voters" can't be predicted, but "likely voters" can. Sure, some voters that are not "likely voters" will in fact vote in the next election, and voters whom are "likely" to vote may not, but, the underlying statistical models underpinning the filter can be mathematically and empirically sound.

There is no doubt that a "likely voter" screen is a better way to poll when you get quite close to an actual election, but one year out it's a bit vague as to how useful that screening is.

This far out, I actually like what Marist/McClatchy and Fox (Opinion Dynamics) do which is run a poll of registered voters, and then NOT slam the undecided hard for a reply.

By limiting the pool to RVs you eliminate the folks who are really unlikley to vote, and by not slamming the undecided, you get the opinion of those who are at least marginally engaged in the process enough to have an a actual opinion.

McClatchy says 43/50 => -7, which is pretty much identical to Fox's 42/48 => -6

The Gold Standard poll (HART/McINTURFF for NBC/WSJ) says 44/51 => -7 which I think is pretty close to reality.

Obama is (IMHO) is in that grey area of polling where is is clearly vulnerable, but also not dead in the water. - Obama's polling looks a lot like Bush II in the summer of 2004 (Obama is maybe a few points weaker) - weak, with a very passionate and intense core of opposition, but also a base that is "hanging in there" and likely facing a challenger in the General election that is less than optimal....

Assuming the Obama folks can bury any ethics scandals, and assuming the GOP gets a flawed candidate, Obama can still will.  It's going to be very close.

President Obama is indeed cooked if...

(1) The Republicans find a really-strong, moderate opponent. A RINO could beat him... or a conservative capable of allaying concerns about whether the GOP agenda would be nothing more than All for the Few. 

(2) He has a significant and discrediting scandal that entails personal gain for raiding the public assets. If Dubya could survive Enron, then the President can survive Solyndra, the latter more a bad judgment on a business model than cronyism.

(3) He assumes that he will be re-elected so he doesn't need to campaign.

(4) The US economy goes very bad very fast.

1. The Republicans aren't running any RINO, and with the politicians that they now have they are not making significant inroads onto the "Blue Firewall" except perhaps New Hampshire -- if Mitt Romney can convince the Granite State that he is one of them.  He is up by nearly 10 points -- which is not surprising when he is much of the news in a state rarely known as a source for news.  If anything the President is consolidating a hold in Ohio, a state that the Republicans absolutely dare not lose.  This President saved the auto industry, or at least two of the Big Three.

2. There may be no scandal to cover up. If Dubya could survive Enron, this President can survive Solyndra.

3. This is a question of personality. Will he do any active campaigning? He seems to enjoy it. He built one of the finest campaign apparatuses ever in 2008 and he can get that back in operation very quickly. He has incentives because the Republican hold on the House will be shaky and the Democratic hold on the Senate looks shaky. This President anticipates trouble well and deals with it without delay.

4. Every month that passes without such happening makes such much less likely.

Americans are getting more fussy about politics altogether, which is a good thing. When it comes to voting, Americans end up grading on a curve. If the President's approval rating is 48% but the opponent has a favorability rating around 42%, then guess who wins! Should Americans be getting more fussy about politics? Without question. We recently had a horrible President, and the House of Representatives is achieving nothing.

President Obama could win the electoral vote despite being second in the popular vote.   

Presidential elections are, by and large, a referendum on the economy. Obama is pretty much cooked unless either the economy improves [almost too late for that since perception lags reality,] or he can successfully change the subject [the economy almost always being the main subject.]

Obamanomics has been a disaster. He has created such uncertainty that unemployment is apt to remain high until after he leaves office. Let's hope for the sake of the unemployed that that is in January of 2013.

The economic realities of the Dubya era included:

1. A capital-devouring speculative bubble in real estate. This bubble collapsed when housing prices overtook any reasonable possibility of buyers having the capacity to buy houses. When the construction ended, then the jobs related to that boom also ended.

2. The gutting of manufacturing jobs due to corporate choices (with which the Right acquiesced)  to become importers instead of manufacturers. Manufacturing jobs have typically been the most reliable means out of poverty and for staying out of poverty. Rarely are they the first choices for most people -- but there are only so many professional jobs out there.

3. Extreme intensification of economic inequality. The Gini coefficient for the United States, which had been on par with European democracies in the 1970s, is now on par with countries infamous for severe disparities of wealth and poverty. Economic inequality in the US is typical of a fascist dictatorship, a kleptocracy, or an economy with feudal characteristics. In our case it is an executive elite that enriches itself by destroying competition and paring the payroll for its own compensation.

4. Huge military expenditures on wars for the profits of military contractors and the glorification of the political leadership. Those have a tendency to create jobs during a war, but as the expenditures approach an end, the wartime jobs disappear. President Obama has been getting us out of Afghanistan and Iraq, but such implies an end of a gravy train for some giant corporations and huge job losses.

The analogy to the current economy may be to the 1930s.  FDR was able to win re-election in a landslide in 1936 despite high unemployment. At this point, all that anyone can hope for is slow and continuing improvement with major reforms of the system. The Republicans got their second chance to show what they have to offer with their House majority, and they have blown it badly.

   

This is a completely different time than 1936.  If the current period was comparable to 1936, Democrats would have gained seats in 2010 like in 1934. 

[Mr.Phips]

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.       

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. 

[Mr.Phips]

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. 

[Mr.Phips]

Hey Hagrid, now you know how Democrats felt in 2004. A president that the other side hated somehow managed to win a second term in uncertain times. Karma's a bitch aint it?

The economy was pretty good in 2004.  Unemployment was around 5.5% and falling and GDP growth was about 3%.