The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[ajb]

Let's put it this way. You've been married to someone for almost 4 years and have to make a decision as to whether or not you want to be locked into another 4 years but aren't sure.  Are you going to put yourself through 4 more years of the same if you aren't completely and totally sure that you'll be happy?  If Obama is 49% or better on election night, he'll win.  At 48% he's talking about winning without the popular vote.  Any less than that and Ralph Nader would have to take votes from the GOP or there is a third party candidate like Ron Paul. The same rules apply to Obama as any other incumbent since they started taking polls. As for right now, it's February.

Yes, if people think the alternative sucks.(in this case Romney).

People may not be satisfy with Obama, but that doesn't mean they won't vote for him.

Yes. The analogy breaks down because you don't have to be married, while we have to have a president. Obama can be re-elected at 46% approval, if his opponent is still less popular than he.

[ajb]

This thread is great because you've got J.J. holding court on how Obama is looking "grim" according to the approval numbers despite the fact that almost every poll shows him comfortably winning re-election.

No, this thread is about approval numbers of an incumbent running for re-election.  It looks at historical numbers regarding how Obama is doing based on past presidents, some who were re-elect and some who were not.

And, yes, it is starting to look grim.

Mind you, you know what looks really grim?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/fav-romney_n_725770.html

[ajb]

This thread is great because you've got J.J. holding court on how Obama is looking "grim" according to the approval numbers despite the fact that almost every poll shows him comfortably winning re-election.

No, this thread is about approval numbers of an incumbent running for re-election.  It looks at historical numbers regarding how Obama is doing based on past presidents, some who were re-elect and some who were not.

And, yes, it is starting to look grim.

Mind you, you know what looks really grim?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/fav-romney_n_725770.html

Romney isn't the President, yet.

Tell me, when was the last challenger who won with favorability numbers like Romney's?  Given your extensive thoughts on the relationship between presidential approval ratings and re-election prospects, I'm sure it's a question you've considered.

[ajb]

This thread is great because you've got J.J. holding court on how Obama is looking "grim" according to the approval numbers despite the fact that almost every poll shows him comfortably winning re-election.

No, this thread is about approval numbers of an incumbent running for re-election.  It looks at historical numbers regarding how Obama is doing based on past presidents, some who were re-elect and some who were not.

And, yes, it is starting to look grim.

Mind you, you know what looks really grim?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/fav-romney_n_725770.html

Romney isn't the President, yet.

Tell me, when was the last challenger who won with favorability numbers like Romney's?  Given your extensive thoughts on the relationship between presidential approval ratings and re-election prospects, I'm sure it's a question you've considered.

Possibly: Clinton, 1992.  Reagan, 1980.  I know that the spring of 1992, Clinton was actually running third.

If you ask the question, which this thread is about, what president won re-election with numbers at or below 45% on Gallup at any point after January 1 on the year they were elected, the only answer is Truman since WW II.

Did Clinton in March of 1992, and Reagan in March of 1980, also have unfavorable numbers nearly at 50%? I doubt it.

The thread is about Obama's approval ratings, not about whether a president has ever won re-election with an approval rating below 45%  at any point after January 1 in the year in which they were re-elected. And the popularity of the challenger would seem highly relevant to that thesis, especially at the margins, which is where we are here.

[ajb]

Gallup didn't conduct daily or weekly polling in 1948 (or 1988). So it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Your theory also suffers from a small sample size of eight or ten elections, depending on your definition of incumbent, and only two or three incumbents having been defeated.

[ajb]

Some sample approval ratings for George W. Bush in 2004:

3/1-7/04    TIPP/IBD/CSM    44    46
3/9-11/04    Amer. Res. Group    45    48    
3/29-4/3/04    TIPP/IBD/CSM    43    48
4/1-4/04    Pew    43    47    
4/8-9/04    Newsweek    41    55
4/19-5/12/04    Pew    44    44
5/3-4/04    Pew    44    48
5/3-6/04    Amer. Res. Group    45    49
5/11/04    CBS    44    49
5/13-14/04    Newsweek    42    52
5/18-24/04    Quinnipiac University    45    50
5/20-23/04    CBS    41    52

And so on. Bush had a 44-48 approval rating as late as Oct. 15 in the Pew and CBS/NYT polls.

http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/CFIDE/roper/presidential/webroot/presidential_rating_detail.cfm?allRate=True&presidentName=Bush#.T1UnRvVXOuI

[ajb]

but please try take into account how undecided voters have actually voted in elections

Yeah, they always vote for the non-incumbent. Just ask President Kerry.

That they did! Bush won the undecided voters who approved of his job as president and Kerry won the ones who did not approve. Fortunately for Bush his approval rating was 54% on election night and didn't even need that to get elected. Clinton was at 54% as well I believe and got just over 48 or 49%. The undecideds went for Perot and Dole. With a 45% approval rating though, Obama is much less likely to win than Bush in 2004 who was in the low 50's.

If you look at the 21 polls the Roper Center has for March 2004 which list approval ratings for George W. Bush, the simple arithmetic mean is 48.6 approval-45.4 disapproval. Obama's approval rating in the last 21 polls in the pollster.com database? 48.6-46.8.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/obama-job-approval#!

[ajb]

Approval ratings don't matter until the night of the election and his was 53-54% based on exit polls. Obama has some jumping up to do.

Thank you.

[ajb]

Today's Gallup:

Obama Approval
48% (+4)
Obama Disapproval
44% (-3)

[ajb]

Today's Gallup:

Obama Approval
48% (+4)
Obama Disapproval
44% (-3)

No change today, still 48-44.

[ajb]

Today's Gallup:

Obama Approval 49% (+2)
Obama Disapproval 43% (-2)

[ajb]

http://weaselzippers.us/2011/04/28/poll-americans-disapproval-of-obamas-handling-of-economy-hits-fresh-high-57/

The longer he babbles about birth control the more women will turn against him on other issues such as the economy. As that goes on it will lead to actual votes in the fall. Obama just doesn't have it with the ladies anymore.

That poll is from April 2011.

You are really a troll, right?

Please describe for me in depth detail how you get that I'm a troll? Is it because I dared to say that Obama may struggle for votes that have traditionally been female? Is it because I don't stand by as a cheerleader for Obama? Is it because I don't walk in line with the liberal media?

Is it because you link to a poll from eleven months ago, without explaining why it, and not the eleven subsequent months of polling data, is the most meaningful indicator of how an election will unfold eight months from now?

[ajb]

I wouldn't try to pass a poll as current on here 11 days after it was released, let alone 11 months. Either you're a troll or you just don't get how polling works.

You got me on this one. What are the numbers now? I don't take myself so seriously that I don't admit to being wrong like the candidate that was elected in 2008.

Here you go:

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/obama-job-approval-economy

[ajb]

That's still bad especially for Huffington Post.

Actually, all the Huffington Post is doing there is compiling a list of all the polls that are out there. I would have given you a list from RealClearPolitics instead, but they don't seem to have a page listing approval ratings on the economy for Obama.
And you're right, Obama's numbers on the economy aren't great (though the trend is positive). I could pick a few that look pretty good, you could pick some that are pretty awful, but hopefully we'd both agree that it's the average that's more useful.
It's just easier to have a discussion about the actual recent numbers, rather than about one poll from eleven months ago.

[ajb]

Judging by the advertising that they're doing, it's clear that neither campaign agrees with J.J. in thinking that the 47% comments were a blip.

[ajb]

Judging by the advertising that they're doing, it's clear that neither campaign agrees with J.J. in thinking that the 47% comments were a blip.

I'm saying it was a blip on Rasmussen.  I'm waiting to see it it is a blip on Gallup.

That's a plausible interpretation of the Rasmussen results. I do think it's worth suggesting that if the 47% comments caused nothing more than a blip, and the race is still essentially tied, then Romney probably wouldn't have replaced all of his existing swing-state ads with an ad in which he announces that he cares just as much about the poor as Obama does.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/09/26/romney_goes_all_in_to_soften_his_47_remarks.html

[ajb]

Judging by the advertising that they're doing, it's clear that neither campaign agrees with J.J. in thinking that the 47% comments were a blip.

I'm saying it was a blip on Rasmussen.  I'm waiting to see it it is a blip on Gallup.

That's a plausible interpretation of the Rasmussen results. I do think it's worth suggesting that if the 47% comments caused nothing more than a blip, and the race is still essentially tied, then Romney probably wouldn't have replaced all of his existing swing-state ads with an ad in which he announces that he cares just as much about the poor as Obama does.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/09/26/romney_goes_all_in_to_soften_his_47_remarks.html

He might have seen it as a preemption.  There was a drop in Rasmussen, but it was ephemeral. 

As the article says, he's going to begin pre-empting last week's gaffe tomorrow. Just saying.