The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[Person Man]

anyone who has the audacity to disapprove of obama is a traitor

^^^^

Finally we agree on something.

Sorta makes your almost feel bad that we are closing Gitmo....almost...

[Person Man]

What is Louisana, gay?

[Person Man]

What is Louisana, gay?

No, not gay enough.

Sorry about the dreadful pun. It's simply reverting to the pattern that it showed in November 2008.

Obama has been President for six months, and he has yet to face a natural disaster. After all, hurricane season has yet to happen, and the southeastern US always gets at least one. How well will he handle it? I can't imagine him bungling the response any hurricane as badly as Dubya bungled the response to Katrina.

Well, what do you call a Republican that doesn't get a chubby over Palin?

[Person Man]

I can say, at the height of Obama's controversy, what the map will probably look like in a close election-

foru94 is probably right if Obama only gets about 48% of the vote.

[Person Man]

I can say, at the height of Obama's controversy, what the map will probably look like in a close election-

foru94 is probably right if Obama only gets about 48% of the vote.

Yes. Actually, I had no idea why I did that. I think even if Corzine can't get to 40% in the next election, Obama will still be able to get to at least 55% in 2012.
I know this because New Jersey probably just hates Corzine for being a total whore and just wants someone else. I think there will be a change of behavior
after just a small time under a far-right freak like Christie. Then again, Rhode Island has a rightie for governor...and there are some red, red states that have
pretty liberal governors. My state SORT OF comes to mind. At least there is Kansas.

Even if Obama only got 48% of the vote, New Jersey would not be a tossup.

[Person Man]

Well, it's a dispicable practice to claim to be an "independent", in an attempt to shift the center. However, its their perogative. What can we do about it? You look like a total dick for calling someone a partisan who claims that they are not a partisan. I do think it is reasonable to call someone out for claiming to be part of a particular party but oppose most its important policies.

[Person Man]

Change your avatar. It would be for the best. Just ask Rowanbrandon how free he feels now.

No, this is for Iran.

That's reasonable...for a while at least. I wonder where that Iran thing is going, anyway. I wounder how the first few months of the last revolution were reported. Is this thing eventually going to go away? Maybe if the rebellion gets put down/ the protesters get boreda nd Iran isn't developing nukes after all, maybe we should just go back to ignoring them if they are neither a threat or opportunity.

[Person Man]

Basically, if we take everything at face value, and adjust Rasmussen numbers to comply with the field, this is what we get:

RCP Average: 53%

[Person Man]

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.

It's best not really to look at job approval ratings right now. I want to see more polling where Obama is under 50%, but is based on a pollster that has Obama's national approval under 50%. At least we will learn about states that the GOP or Obama might be able to firewall early (swings states that already swung).

[Person Man]

Ask one way, and Obama will probably will handily in 2012, though probably have a little more trouble (55% will vote for him in MI and he will probably lose OH and IN but do ok in FL, PA and have VA come to the wire)...asked another, he may be lucky to carry anything outside of D.C.

[Person Man]

How did Oklahoma City help Clinton's approvals?

[Person Man]

Obama's approvals were on the upswing even before Tucson. You could say it was because of the lame duck successes but OTOH legislative productivity didn't have any positive effect on his numbers before the midterms.

I think the main reason is that suddenly people became more optimistic about the economy. But what happened that changed their perceptions so much? Jobs numbers are still mediocre and incomes are still stagnant. 

Obviously the librul aborshun loving media....I'm actually half serious about this...well, maybe not quite half, but there could be more stories protraying him in a positive light.

[Person Man]

52-47/55/44? So, Obama is basicall back to where he started on election night.

[Person Man]

In 2012, I am guessing if Obama did two better and got to 54.65%, he would probably win Missouri, Montana and MAYBE Georgia. The Dakotas and Arizona may swing, too...but that would be unlikely. It would be pretty funny to ask someone about South Dakota the following morning.

[Person Man]

In 2012, I am guessing if Obama did two better and got to 54.65%, he would probably win Missouri, Montana and MAYBE Georgia. The Dakotas and Arizona may swing, too...but that would be unlikely. It would be pretty funny to ask someone about South Dakota the following morning.

Montana that close in 2008 was pretty much a fluke I think and it helped Obama that Ron Paul was on the ballot. I think it will trend away from Obama again in 2012 as PPP indicated with their Montana poll a month ago or so.

I'm guessing that Obama will instead move in on states that are beginning to be open to voting for him? He's kinda unpopular in Texas, but there seems to be an openness to vote for him. I also wonder what's happening in Arizona and Georgia. Missouri looks better for him, too.  What's interesting is is that though so my EVs have trended to the GOP, the Democratcs  are simply making up for it by moving after them.

SurveyUSA, Mid-January:

California: 51-45

Kansas: 33-63

Washington: 41-57 (LOL)

Fail.   Maybe if he was behind like 10 in the polls and was off to a Carter-like defeat. That's the Republican wet dream, isn't it?

[Person Man]

Generally, I think "fair" means neither good nor bad.

[Person Man]

Who and how did someone get 3%?!

I can understand twenty-somethings....but under 20% seems really hard to believe.

[Person Man]

High 50s....I am guessing it undid the damage caused by being upset that Obama took a nuanced action on Libya when no one knew what to do. Obama's goal should be to get the momentum going into the 2012 campaign...if there's no big disaster or war AND more people go back to work, he could be able to do that. IF he has a good six months...but when was the last time we had TRULY GOOD six months? (When we kicked Saddam's ass?) I mean Katrina, the Iraqi Civil War, the Foreclosures and as soon as people start trying to go back to work, Libya and Japan happens. 

[Person Man]

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. 

That seems to be an oversimplification.

[Person Man]

Rasmussen:

51% Approve, 48% Disapprove

46-45 Obama-Romney

Those numbers don't quite make since. This does feel a lot like 2004, actually...

[Person Man]

Must be closing a little because of the debates....