The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[pbrower2a]

68% allows me to put a beautiful pine-green shade on a pine-rich state (Maine), even if the poll is from the Daily Kos:

... I promise: unless Indiana or NE-02 is polled by September  31 October 1, the relevant bailiwicks go "orange". Six months is clearly outdated.

[pbrower2a]

Nate Silver has an interesting statement on whether 50% approval is the "magic" threshold for winning re-election:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/50-percent-is-not-magic-number.html

FiveThirtyEight.com has a graphics-rich page that I can't quite duplicate, so here is a synopsis:

A President with an approval rating of 44% has roughly a fifty-fifty chance of winning re-election nationwide.  With a 50% approval rating his chance of winning re-election is about 90%. Who runs against the President matters greatly; even with a 60% approval rating in Utah, Obama would lose to Romney, and much the same holds true against Huckabee in Arkansas.

An example: in 2004, George W. Bush's last approval rating according to the Gallup Poll was 48% -- and he won barely. Another: Gerald Ford's last approval rating was 45%, and he lost -- barely.  The elder Bush had a 34% approval rating (even if he was a far better President than his son) and lost badly.  Clinton, Nixon, Reagan, Eisenhower, and Reagan had approval ratings from 54% to 74% -- and won decisively. Truman had an approval rating of 39% -- and still won (although he was on a roller-coaster, so to speak).

......

President Obama of course has the responsibility to keep his approval rating up, and he can do much of it himself. Much of it will come from elsewhere, like whether the economy does reasonably well (there won't be any speculative boom) and whether there will be no foreign-policy disasters (that may be up to Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad). To have a chance against a President with a 47% approval rating, the Republicans will have to run someone effective at getting his point across. John Kerry in 2004 demonstrated how a weakened challenger can assure a bare win for an incumbent President with sub-50% support.   

[pbrower2a]

Maine(KOS)

Favorable 68%
Unfavorable 23%

http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/9/16/ME/376

LOL Kos, he doesn't he try to hide his bias(or just awfulness).

This poll is one that just isn't believable, like the Texas one in March that had Obama at 67% approval. Assuming 100% of Democrats and Independants favored Obama, still, at least 17% of Republicans would have to approve of him too.

Here's the split:

                           FAV             UNFAV     NO OPINION
ALL                           68              23             9
MEN                           63               29                   8
WOMEN                   73              17                 10
DEMOCRATS           89                5                   6
REPUBLICANS           35              54           11
INDEPENDENTS   74              17                   9
18-29                   72              18                 10
30-44                   71              20                   9
45-59                   65              26                   9
60+                           62              30                   8

Maine is not a normal state; it is one of the most liberal in America, the sort that goes for a Republican nominee for President only  in a 40+ state landslide. 

[pbrower2a]

Again, the approval rating involves "likely voters" in an odd-year election. Until someone can convince me that odd-year elections have the same level of participation as midterm elections, let alone Presidential elections, I am not going to accept the New Jersey poll except as an expression of how a Governor's campaign is going in the autumn of 2009. Of course the poll is relevant to the gubernatorial race. 

[pbrower2a]

Virginia (Washington Post):

53% Approve
47% Disapprove

Iowa (Des Moines Register):

53% Approve
41% Disapprove

Map revised:

Consider the Virginia result an average.

[pbrower2a]

Hahaha, so you include the VA poll when it's positive but dismiss the NJ poll when it's negative. You sir are not just a moron, but a HACK.

The Virginia result comes from an average between a 49-50 and a 53-47 poll.

I maintain that an odd-year election has a significantly-different electorate than an even-year election. The NJ result that some ballyhoo won't likely hold. Show one after the gubernatorial election -- or show that the participation in the election is essentially the same as in 2008 in New Jersey, and I will "unfreeze"  the result.

I recognized recent polls in Wisconsin and Iowa that did not look good for Obama.  Those polls were valid. (So was the one that negated the Iowa poll that showed Obama in trouble there.

I see no difference between rejecting the recent poll in New Jersey and rejecting a poll commissioned by the NAACP or the NRA. Neither does polls, but you can just imagine what bias either would show.

[pbrower2a]

Then why are you including ANY VA polls? Those are from a 2009 electorate. You are brain dead.

Because they are consistent with 2008 and not with an incumbent trying to save a failing governorship.

[pbrower2a]

Neither of the polls should be used then, not both.

Which is the point I've been trying to make. It's about consistency.

Oddly the effect would be to negate the two last polls involving Virginia, which means that the state would remain light-green as it was before the Rasmussen poll that showed a 49-50 split on approval ratings.

The New Jersey poll is of course inconsistent with what is shown in politically-similar states... like Connecticut; if anything it looks like an inversion of what one might expect.     

[pbrower2a]

Neither of the polls should be used then, not both.

Which is the point I've been trying to make. It's about consistency.

Oddly the effect would be to negate the two last polls involving Virginia, which means that the state would remain light-green as it was before the Rasmussen poll that showed a 49-50 split on approval ratings.

The New Jersey poll is of course inconsistent with what is shown in politically-similar states... like Connecticut; if anything it looks like an inversion of what one might expect.     

Then don't use the stupid Maine outlier either, you incompetent troll.

Outliers tend to get whittled down.  Nobody expects Maine to go 68-31 for Obama in 2012; it didn't go 60-40 in 2008. But only if Obama has a catastrophically-incompetent Presidency is Maine in question in 2012 will the state be in question as an Obama win -- and the GOP nominee will win. Just wait; even if the next approval rating for Obama is 64% the shade for Obama becomes less pronounced. 

Maine sticks out because it has a large territory for its electoral vote count. The state has almost the area of Ohio and a fifth the electoral votes. Consider the illusion that a state with a large area and few electoral votes can offer: Montana has roughly the area of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio combined, and only three electoral votes while the five other states have 79 electoral votes. I have put Maine in the "7" category because of rounding -- and because the most interesting area is between 45 and 55 I don't round up anything from 45 to 54, inclusive. 

Attention is best placed at the states rightly seen as the likely margin of victory in the 2012 election -- Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada... maybe New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania showing deep trouble for Obama should he be in electoral trouble.

Much remains unknown -- especially who will be the Republican nominee, whether Obama loses significant support in places that Democrats used to take for granted or whether he can gain support in places in which he got clobbered in 2008. There could be a third-party challenge.  So far this map can show some trends. One of the most obvious is that the honeymoon is over. We shall see how the health-care debate goes soon enough. We will also see whether the right-wing tax revolt is successful in eroding support for the President or whether it peters out. 

All that we have is approval ratings or performance appraisals, and we don't have enough to predict exactly how Obama will fare in 2012. Some states haven't been polled at all, and some of the most recent polls for some states come from this winter. We can see patterns and we can see noise -- the latter, minor variations that mean little.         

[pbrower2a]

Didn't Pbrower say Obama is a lock to win Arizona?

No!

I haven't said that he is a lock to win re-election; he can still fail badly as President. Likely? I doubt it. He just has too many political skills.  

I have said that Senator John Kyl wins the state should he be the Republican nominee for President or Vice-President. The first is unlikely; the second is as likely as many others. Favorite Son effect is real, but not 100% effective.  It means much free media access by a candidate, that his usual campaign apparatus for winning statewide elections (typically for Governor or US Senate)  can seal things up early, and that lots of people have favors to return as votes. It means that he has the pulse of the voting public in that state, and that he need not introduce himself as an outsider. Those are huge advantages, and unless someone contends that John McCain has become a political schmuck in Arizona,  the Favorite Son effect will be significant. It does not remain after the candidate has left. Is anyone ready to say that some other potential GOP nominee of 2008 would have done as well as McCain in Arizona?

Of course such does not apply to a candidate who has never won statewide office -- let's say a big-city mayor or a Representative (Rudy Giuliani may have had that problem in 2008), and it does not apply to someone whose name is poison (example: Rick Santorum is not going to win Pennsylvania). If someone has a reputation as a political lightweight in that state, then the Favorite Son effect doesn't exist.

All that I have said is that if Barack Obama does as well in 2012 with the sorts of voters that he did well with in 2008... he has a good chance of winning Arizona. He has a far better chance of winning Arizona than of winning any Plains state or any of the Clinton-but-not-Obama States of the New Orleans-Wheeling Arc.  He could win Arizona while losing Indiana. He absolutely won't win Arizona in a 50-50 election. 52-47 as in 2008?  Arizona has then about a 50-50 chance of voting for Obama. 53-46?  Maybe 70%. 54-45? About 90% -- and that is with Obama holding North Carolina and Indiana while picking up Missouri and perhaps Montana as well. Anything "beyond" Arizona will be difficult -- even Georgia and the Dakotas. To pick up Georgia he must practically resuscitate the old Clinton coalition, which might cost some electoral votes elsewhere.







 

[pbrower2a]

Texas(Rasmussen)

Approve 53%
Disapprove 56%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_state_surveys/texas/most_in_texas_give_public_health_agencies_positive_marks_on_swine_flu_response

It's 43-56.

I forgive the typo.

56% rounds up to 60% for the level of color:

Come on, Wisconsin, Indiana, and NE-02!

[pbrower2a]

Arizona is a 47-47 tie; Minnesota's 55% rounds up (I rounded up Texas, so don't quibble).

Colorado, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada should be interesting.  Come in Indiana and NE-02, too!

[pbrower2a]

Arizona is a 47-47 tie; Minnesota's 55% rounds up (I rounded up Texas, so don't quibble).

Colorado, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada should be interesting.  Come in Indiana and NE-02, too!

Please stop rounding polls up and down. MN's 55% cannot be rounded up to 60%, because it's 55%-45% and there's a 4% MoE.

BTW: Nobody seems to polls IN, a really interesting state that has not been polled for 1 year. I have written to PPP to include it in their user choice, but they have never done so ...

I'm going to treat 55% as "5", but 56-64 as "6". 65-74 as "7", 75-84 as "8", and anything above 85 as a "9" (in case someone polls DC). 45-55 is the interesting area, and anything beyond that suggests the possibility of a blowout. That goes just the same for disapprovals, too.

You have a case on 55%; that is a 10% lead, and McCain did take a quixotic effort to win Pennsylvania in the last few weeks -- one that few Democrats thought could succeed. 

I'm going to start treating states with polls older than six months as "unpolled". So the orange disappears:

Romney would absolutely crush Obama in Utah, so I will keep that state shaded yellow.

[pbrower2a]

Wisconsin should be colored red; last month's polls for Iowa and Wisconsin both showed marginal advantages for "Generic Republican"; this month a poll showed Iowa a positive approval for Obama and Minnesota showing a decisive one (55%). Wisconsin is typically between Iowa and Minnesota in its polls, so it's not as if Wisconsin is likely to vote for the Republican if Minnesota and Iowa vote for Obama.

[pbrower2a]

GA, MD, MO, NJ, NY -- MD for the first time, but no surprise there.

I'm a bit surprised about Missouri. I'd expect it to be much closer than it is. Strategic Vision is an R-leaning poll, but a 56% disapproval rate is outside the MOE.

I have frequently said that the Age Wave alone could push Missouri into an Obama pick-up in 2012. It's not the whole of political reality; it works on the margin.

[pbrower2a]

Wouldn't it be easier to just put the number for the month?  I think we all know those a little better.  And this is a political forum after all, so it's not like we're going to think California and Nevada both have 9EVs.

The I means that the latest useful poll came from the ninth month of the year (September). When a state was most recently polled matters greatly. One time this year Obama had a positive approval rating in , of all places, Utah.

[pbrower2a]

Well, that NJ poll was added very quickly, despite including only 2009 likely voters.

Probably low, but the direction makes sense.

No way is New Jersey more R than America as a whole!

[pbrower2a]

Well, that NJ poll was added very quickly, despite including only 2009 likely voters.

Probably low, but the direction makes sense.

No way is New Jersey more R than America as a whole!

Isn't this map supposed to be just a compilation of polls coming out on Obama's job approvals? It seems like you're just picking which polls you agree with and adding them. NJ is not more R than America, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't add it. Likewise, Maine is not D+20 compared to America, yet you added the ridiculous poll showing Obama at 70% there. I just want consistency, not a map that you want to see.

You have to remember, you are talking an Obama hack. In his mind any poll that shows his savior unpopular is just the work of the evil right wing terrorists that are trying to destroy America.

Duh!!

The vast majority of American conservatives seek continual improvement in American life. Most seem to want the best for America, and should President Obama do well, then they do well.

Danger comes from extremists posing this time as conservatives who want Obama to fail so that they can get their pet agenda without qualification. They want him to have one legislative failure after another, and they willingly risk economic failure so long as they can direct America "back" to Jesus or Mammon, whichever they believe in at the time.  In the meantime they will disrupt the political process to make liberals of all kinds look bad, and if we get an economic meltdown that rivals that of 1929-1933, so much the better as a Sign from God that America must return to some old values that have been betrayed.

The early stage of the economic upturn can turn into a mirage. Iran and North Korea are both far more dangerous to the lives of Americans and to genuine friends in Israel and South Korea. Healthcare costs are rising more rapidly than wages and productivity -- and they are crippling our potential to export while giving perverse subsidies to countries that have healthcare systems more sensible than ours. Elected conservatives have no obligation to roll over and play dead -- but they have no prerogative to disrupt the political process.

[pbrower2a]

Why do you continue to ignore the question about why you chose to include this NJ poll and rejected the earlier one?

I'm going to keep asking until you answer.

For the NJ poll showing disapproval of Obama, remind me again what the sample's 2008 vote was? Wasn't it a few points for McCain compared to an actual vote of 57-41? Even if a reasonable expected number of 2008 Obama voters lied about their vote to pollsters over regret/selective memory, that sample was still clearly FAR out of whack with the actual NJ electorate. Not to mention, even the most partisan NJ Republican on this board will acknowledge that Obama's approval rating in NJ should be running at least several points ahead of his national ratings. So Rasmussen showing Obama's national approval/disapproval rating at about -2 to even, Rassy concurrently showin a NJ approval poll a couple points worse is obviously flawed.

In a word, outlier.

Of course, Pbrower, you could just factor that errant NJ poll in to the map anyway just to shut these people up. What the hey? NJ will be back to green--probably to stay--when the next couple poll comes out over the next month and a half.

It would fit that way -- as would the two polls involving Iowa.

[pbrower2a]

New Jersey (Strategic Vision)

48% Approve
43% Disapprove

The results of a three-day poll in the state of New Jersey. Results are based on telephone interviews with 800 likely voters in New Jersey, aged 18+, and conducted September 18-20, 2009 by telephone. The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/newjersey_poll_092409.htm

TX-28 (R2000)

50% Favorable
45% Unfavorable

This survey was conducted by Research 2000 of Rockville, Maryland. A total of 600 likely voters in the Twenty-Eighth Congressional District were interviewed by telephone September 15 through September 17, 2009.

http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/9/17/TX/380

NJ polling is simply wild.

What is it with TX-28? It's a district that stretches from about halfway between Austin and San Antonio to the Mexican border, just skirting Laredo  and holding a small part of San Antonio and some of its eastern and southern suburbs. It is 65% Hispanic; its Cook PVI is even, which means that it on the average can vote as America does. Its Representative, Henry Cuellar, is a so-called Blue Dog Democrat.

This poll is about healthcare, and it is apparently with Obama -- not against him.   

[pbrower2a]

So you are only including the NJ polls with him over 50%? Makes a helluva lot of sense to me.

The positive polls this month overpower the one negative appraisal. No harm, no foul.

[pbrower2a]

What is it with TX-28? It's a district that stretches from about halfway between Austin and San Antonio to the Mexican border, just skirting Laredo  and holding a small part of San Antonio and some of its eastern and southern suburbs. It is 65% Hispanic; its Cook PVI is even, which means that it on the average can vote as America does. Its Representative, Henry Cuellar, is a so-called Blue Dog Democrat.

This poll is about healthcare, and it is apparently with Obama -- not against him.   

It has been shown that areas that are poorer than average tend to, quite obviously have more people uninsured. And uninsured people are much more likely to back the health care plan.

A lot of blue dog, socially conservative areas (eg Arkansas) would probably support the health care plan even though they do not like Obama.

Maybe that will push some voters toward Obama in 2012 -- the sorts who voted for Clinton in 1992 and 1996 but for McCain in 2008?

[pbrower2a]

OH poll averages a recent one into a tie; old polls for IN and NE-02 are no longer relevant.

[pbrower2a]

Yes, they do average out slightly above 50% for Obama.

[/quote]

[pbrower2a]

In the same month with no breaking news likely to change events we can find averages between credible pollsters. PPP, Rasmussen, and Strategic Vision are likely to get different results because of different methodologies.