The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[Associate Justice PiT]

In Michigan Obama Approval Rating
55% Disapprove
44% Approve

Do you have a source?

Also, welcome to the forum

With numbers like that, it's probably a Rasmussen, Zogby or something.  I just have a hard time believing -11 in Michigan...

EPIC-MRI - a local Michigan poling company out of Lansing - I find them to be pretty accurate for election polling.  Not sure about approval rating polls though.

Ah, alright, thanks for the reference.  I've personally never heard of that polling agency.

They only do Michigan polls, but they're the main Michigan polling company (at least non-partisan company, that is).

I remember them from both 2006 and the 2008 Republican primaries.

     Yeah I remember them too. They only poll one state, but they seem to be fairly prolific nevertheless.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Hmm, Rasmussen is showing the same margin as other pollsters; it is merely that the undecideds are basically nonexistent in the Rasmussen poll. I suppose this will have no effect on the (albeit relenting) Democratic narrative that Rasmussen is in the pocket of the Republican Party.

[Associate Justice PiT]

46% in Alaska from Rass, 44% from PPP and 40% from the NSRC pollster.

Incredible.

Maybe not; these all might be in MOE.

I'm not talking about a trend there. I don't think Obama's going up at this point, I was just commenting on how you wouldn't think that his ratings would be in the 40s in Alaska. Even though he was competitive there in the election pre-Palin.

     Alaskans tend to be very independent-minded. Predicting what they will do next can be difficult.

[Associate Justice PiT]

17 going on 18. I'm a bit immature, I know, but the hate on pbrower2 is a bit immature as well. I'm probably biased on this, but I fail to see how pbrower2 is a hack, seeing as how your only argument for him being one (that I can see) is that he is not a Republican.

No, the argument is how he seems to think negative approval ratings across the country translate into him winning big in 2012. Then there is his air hub thing, and that "no matter how crappy a job, the incumbent will always see 6%+ magically appear". Then there is his tendency to use a poll that clearly shows an unusually high approval, but firmly reject using a poll that shows an unusually low approval, calling it out as a bad poll.

     I remember that he once called a poll of Georgia with Obama at 35% approval a push poll, giving no justification or explanation whatsoever.

[Associate Justice PiT]

30% Or Lower: Red-9
40%-30% Approval: Red-5
40-44% Approval: Red-4
45-49% Approval: Yellow-3
50% Approval Equal: Yellow-1 (White)
50% Approval Greater: Green-3
50-55%: Green-4
56-59%: Green-6
60%+: Green-8
DC - Blue -

O=Obama '08 State
M=McCain '08 State

Trying out my own color scheme - I don't like PBrower2's or JBrase's, so I'm trying this one out. Let me know what you think.

I don't mind your colour scheme. I think red v green is a good indicator of approval/disapproval. The only thing I'd change is getting rid of the Maine and Nebraska CDs (unless a poll specifically separates them) - otherwise you're guessing and that sort of guess work is not polled and shouldn't be included in a poll map. You can get rid of the CDs by using a map from (I think) the 1964 election (?) something like that.

     In the EV Calculator, one of the display options is to disable displaying Congressional Districts.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I love how Rasmussen broke Pbrower's heart.  Way to go Ras!

Real heartbreak would come from the Tea Party Movement achieving power in America and establishing a perverse syncretism of absolute plutocracy with Christian Protestant fundamentalism.

Looking at socialist authoritarian alternative we have with Obama, we can only hope so.

Can we settle down, children?  There will be no theocracy with the Tea Party or socialist authoritarianism with Obama.  Do either of you know ANYTHING about the United States?  The differences between the two parties in America in the grand scheme of things is minimal at best. 

     This really needed to be said. Calling random Democrats socialists & random Republicans fascists was dead wrong back when Gore Vidal did it to William F. Buckley & it's still dead wrong today.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I love how Rasmussen broke Pbrower's heart.  Way to go Ras!

Real heartbreak would come from the Tea Party Movement achieving power in America and establishing a perverse syncretism of absolute plutocracy with Christian Protestant fundamentalism.

Looking at socialist authoritarian alternative we have with Obama, we can only hope so.

Can we settle down, children?  There will be no theocracy with the Tea Party or socialist authoritarianism with Obama.  Do either of you know ANYTHING about the United States?  The differences between the two parties in America in the grand scheme of things is minimal at best. 

     This really needed to be said. Calling random Democrats socialists & random Republicans fascists was dead wrong back when Gore Vidal did it to William F. Buckley & it's still dead wrong today.

You have seen a greater attempt under Obama, with the auto bailouts, to increase the government role in the private sector.  And in that case you cannot make the argument it was there to stabilize a broken infrastructure (unlike TARP).

     Which is still a far cry from socialism. In other words, if you were to express the government's economic policy in terms of how far it is from socialism, Obama moved us from 25 miles away to 24 miles away. Obama leans a bit more towards socialism than many other Presidents (wouldn't really notice that based on what he has managed so far), but that is very different from actually being socialist.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Given that Support-Oppose is still underwater, it's a bit early for Democrats to be celebrating.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Or maybe the electorate has shifted since then.

I recognize your narrative for this November will be that the reason why the Democrat Party lost was because Democrats didn't show up but the reality may very well be that there are fewer Democrats as the country has shifted since 2008.

Thailand certainly has shifted since the fall of Abhisit, but that's benefited the Democrats, not hurt them.

     I'm personally curious as to why Tender Branson would care enough to be spinning the loss of the Democrat Party. Maybe he has family in Thailand or something.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Or maybe the electorate has shifted since then.

I recognize your narrative for this November will be that the reason why the Democrat Party lost was because Democrats didn't show up but the reality may very well be that there are fewer Democrats as the country has shifted since 2008.

Thailand certainly has shifted since the fall of Abhisit, but that's benefited the Democrats, not hurt them.

     I'm personally curious as to why Tender Branson would care enough to be spinning the loss of the Democrat Party. Maybe he has family in Thailand or something.

My post has nothing to do with "spinning the 2010 election".

It´s more about the 2012 election. Just because this year there are fewer Democrats turning out, it doesn´t mean at all that the electorate has shifted in the last 2 years. To the contrary, there has almost been no change in party identification in the last 2 years, check some of the registration figures below. Democrats are just sitting it out this year, but there´s a good enough chance that once the Republican Presidential joke is coming out of the primary, they will turn out en masse again. It´s the silent majority and they will be reactivated by the Obama campaign in Mid-2012.

As for the registration numbers:

California

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ror/ror-pages/60day-gen-10/hist-reg-stats.pdf

(The number of Republicans there has dropped to record lows)

In Florida, Democrats still have a 600.000 advantage over the Republicans, about the same as it was in 2008.

And so on ...

There´s no indicator that the registered electorate has changed the way for example Rasmussen wants to tell us it has ...

     ...I didn't say you were spinning the 2010 election.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Are we no longer tracking state polling here?

I am.  pbrower2a just gave up because he doesn't like the results.

Didn't he say the source for his polls was now charging money, so he had to quit?

     Yes, Rasmussen now only releases state-by-state approval polls to its premium members.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Are we no longer tracking state polling here?

I am.  pbrower2a just gave up because he doesn't like the results.

Didn't he say the source for his polls was now charging money, so he had to quit?

     Yes, Rasmussen now only releases state-by-state approval polls to its premium members.

That sucks.  I wonder who would pay just for poll data (unless that was related to your job)?

     Sam Spade, evidently.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Interesting that he has slipped to 36% in Alaska. Even when his numbers were at their worst, his approval rating in Alaska was stubbornly clinging to the low 40s.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I know we don't matter, but Obama has a 54 to 19% approval rating in the UK:
http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/Brits-back-Barack

We're all just dirty socialists.

     Not to mention dirty undecideds, seeing as how 27% of you were to indecisive to register an opinion.

[Associate Justice PiT]

"Fair."  I've said this before, and will say it again:  I think a lot of people do not realize that "Fair" is considered a bad thing.

Wait, "fair" is considered bad?

     My reaction as well. I've always wondered how some pollsters got the idea that using Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor for ratings was anything other than a terrible idea.

[Associate Justice PiT]

North Carolina's looking kind of odd on your map pbrower.

     North Carolina has been acting oddly lately. It seems like the kind of state that could become a Democratic enclave in Republican country 10 years down the line.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Allright, any faith I once held in Rasmussen's polling is pretty much completely gone. Even a Fox News poll is showing more favorable numbers for the President.

     I don't know about their current pollsters, but back when their polls were done by Opinion Dynamics they had a distinct Democratic lean. That FOX News is a conservative organization doesn't necessarily mean that their polls have a conservative bias.

     With that much said, I do doubt Rasmussen's polls here. They're showing the worst numbers for Obama by a large margin.

[Associate Justice PiT]

His approval has dropped like a rock in a bathtub the last few days. Not just Rasmussen either. Has to be from his Libya address.

After Dubya, any form of war looks unspeakably horrible to many American liberals.

If this war (let's not kid ourselves that it is anything else) is over quickly and decisively with a good result limited to an erratic dictator either in flight, in custody, or in a casket, then this is more like Grenada than Iraq.

So far I give 100% of the fault for the civil war in Libya to Muammar Qaddafi.

     The question is, will swing voters agree with that, or even agree with the question as posed? In politics, perception is not reality, but pretty close to it. If Obama is perceived as being at fault, then him not actually being at fault is a hollow comfort for him.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I am starting to suspect that pollsters don't have any actual notion of approval ratings & why people would be interested in them. -_-