The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

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Rasmussen

Approve 53%(-1)
Disapprove 47%(+1)

I guess that means he's officially down to election day levels.

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We need to stop acting like the states that haven't voted Republican ince the 1980s provide some sort of structural advantage to Obama. The Democrats have won those states because Republican national margins have been nonexistent to narrow.

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Gee. I wonder why independents aren't approving a right-leaning administration.

Probably the same reason they disapproved of the left-leaning Bush administration.

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Anyone have any numbers for what Bush and Clinton's approvals were at this point in their term? For comparison.

Gallup averages:

Clinton July 1993: 43% approve 49% disapprove

Bush July 2001: 57% approve 34% disapprove

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Obama is slipping some -- probably because he is out of the country.

Haha, what?  Do you think people are like, "Ah! I don't see the President! Where is he, where is he?! He's horrible!"

When a mad leader in North Korea fires off missiles and has a nuke program, any missiles (nukes or not) that that mad leader orders fired at the West Coast must pass through Russian airspace, and our President gets a chance to discuss what to do about it with the Russian political leadership and gets a chance, do you think that he would be wise to take factory tours in Ohio instead?

To put it crudely, he had better do diplomacy with Russia so that people in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego can be sure of being able to vote for him. Vaporized people don't vote, among other things. If one of our great cities is hit hard enough, then a high level of unemployment there will be the least of most people's problems.

Who wants to create jobs for grave diggers? 

 

Well thanks for enlightening us dullards on the virtues of diplomacy. I think, however, that he was making fun of another one of your unsubstantiated views and desired more evidence for them.

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Gallup tracking: 61% approve

USA Today/Gallup poll: 55% approve

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-07-20-obama-poll-economy_N.htm

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There is nothing Republican about trying to figure out who will actually vote.

It's simply impossible to predict which current 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds will vote three years from now. Rasmussen does not try; it is thus safe to look at a Rasmussen poll as a floor (for Democrats) that will likely rise as Election Day approaches.

If Rasmussen had been polling in 1980 or 1984 with the same methodology, then his firm would have greatly underestimated Reagan victories.

Dude, I hope you know that no polling firm tries to predict how 15 and 16 year olds will vote.

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Rasmussen still has him under 50% today:

Approve 49%

Disapprove 51%

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CBS News

Approve 58%
Disapprove 30%

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/29/opinion/polls/main5196563.shtml

Does anyone here still defend CBS/New York Times polls as anything other than a complete joke?

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Pew Research

Approve 54%
Disapprove 34%

http://people-press.org/report/532/obamas-ratings-slide

Holy cow, 38% approval on the economy? Even I'm shocked....

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Pew Research

Approve 54%
Disapprove 34%

http://people-press.org/report/532/obamas-ratings-slide

Holy cow, 38% approval on the economy? Even I'm shocked....

Even though people think he's doing bad on the Economy, Health care and the deficit people say they would rather have Obama doing the job then the Republicans.

"From health care to handguns, the American public has more confidence in the
Democratic party than the Republican party to deal with domestic issues. By margins of more
than 20 percentage points, the public thinks the Democratic party would do a better job of
protecting the environment (46% to 22%), and reforming health care (47% to 25%) than would
the GOP. Smaller pluralities give the nod to the Democratic party on issues where there has been
either party parity or a GOP advantage. Times Mirror's respondents preferred the Democrats for
reducing crime by a 35% to 29% margin and for reducing the budget deficit by a thin 36% to
31%. Wider pluralities had more confidence in the Democrats for reforming the welfare system
(40% to 30%) and on gun control (42% to 32%)."

--Pew Research, December 1993 http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/19931209.pdf

I wonder how that worked out for the Dems in 1994....

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Um, the point was that even though the public in 1993 said they agreed with the Democrats more than the Republicans, they had no problem with throwing them out of Congress the very next year. The same dynamic can work now. Remember, the Democrat's rise in 2006 was almost entirely due to anti-Bush sentiment, not any positive agenda they offered. Being "the party of no" may be enough for Republicans to make gains in 2010 (assuming discontent with  Obama) even if the public presently supports the Democrats more than the Republicans.

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Trends for comparison:

Carter Aug. 1977: 63/20

Reagan Aug. 1981: 60/29

Bush I Aug. 1989: 69/19

Clinton Aug. 1993: 44/48

Bush II Aug. 2001: 56/35

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Uh, no there not bad. They show how different presidents were at similar times in their career.

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You keep repeating that over and over again, and it isn't any more convincing than the first time you said it.

The President does not control the economy. Bush and Clinton had absolutely nothing to do with how the economy performed under them.

The only thing I saw Bush get from the fall of 2003 on was an endless parade of attacks against him. Obama is getting beat up by the right, to be sure, but his media protectors are probably giving him an extra 10 points.

Democrats were pretty much invested in Bush's failure, and boy did they hit the jackpot. Why shoulld we expect Republicans to be different?

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Trends for comparison:

Carter 54/29 (September 1977)

Reagan 52/37 (September 1981)

Bush I 70/17 (September 1989)

Clinton 50/40 (September 1993)

Bush 51/39 before 9/11, 90/6 after (September 2001)

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Ohio (Quinnipiac University)

53% Approve
42% Disapprove

Very surprising, but good.  New Jersey is also incredibly odd; any explanations?

Ohio: measuring the temporary health care speech bounce.

New Jersey: Likely voters 2009 are 48-46 Obama over McCain when it was 57-41 in November.

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We should really do separate maps, one of which that has adults/registered voters and the other one with likely voters.

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Arkansas:

Approve: 37%

Disapprove: 62%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/arkansas/toplines/toplines_2010_arkansas_senate_race_september_28_2009

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Are you being serious? Deficit projections show massive budget deficits in the years ahead (worse than the Bush years).

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Nope. Kentucky is R+23, New Jersey is D+8

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Do we think there will be a boost from Obama's Nobel Prize win?

Only if he turns it down.

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Do we think there will be a boost from Obama's Nobel Prize win?

Any Nobel Peace Prize for President Barack Obama is premature.

The understatement of the century.

And, no its not to "strengthen" his hand, its to weaken it. Will the man who got the Nobel Peace Prize vigorously prosecute two wars and use force to stop Iran?

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Add to that -- Obama had a

a) Bush

b) the economy

c) a stock market meltdown, complete with bank collapses

d) a corrupt media establishment basically working for him, often conforming to his campaign propaganda and covering up anything that could hurt him.

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d) a corrupt media establishment basically working for him, often conforming to his campaign propaganda and covering up anything that could hurt him. 

That was more down to the fact that Obama, unlike McCain, waged a positive spirited campaign

Yeah, according to the media.

Of course McCain's campaign was primarily negative but Obama had a ton of negative stuff thrown at McCain too.