The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[The Vorlon]

Gallup, meh:

Approve:  42%, +1

Disapprove:  51%, u.

Obama might be moving out of the trough.

I use a 30 day rolling average for Gallup...  Very "pure" polling with almost no sample stratification.  Damn hard to do these days.  Give them credit for keeping the "old school" alive

[The Vorlon]

Under 40% for the first time in Gallup polling:

Approve: 39%(-3%)

Disapprove: 54%(+3%)

Whenever I see a tracking poll move 6% in one day my first reaction is always "blip"

That being said...

The distribution of Obama approval in the last 15 polls on the RCP average is:


45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45
44, 44, 44, 44, 44, 44, 44
42
39

When 15 consecutive polls from 12 different polling organizations show no better than 45%, well, the numbers are what they are.......

Even Democracy Corpse (D) showed a minus 5 net approval, 45/50 with a -15 intensity rating. (25% strongly approve versus 40% strongly disapprove) for Obama.

This same poll showed the GOP +6 on the Economy (To be fair, there is SOME good news in the DC poll if you're a Dem)

Not sure I quite believe 39%, but It's darn hard to make an argument Obama is any better than 44% or 45%

Obama is, give or take a point or so, where Bush was in the summer of 2004 at the height of the Abu Garab (sp?) prison mess - Perhaps the S&P downgrade is Obama's Abu Garab?

The Bush versus Obama polling is similar in other ways - both candidates had their base strick with them, both candidates retained higher personal favorability ratings that job approval ratings.

As of now, 2012 looks a lot like 2004 to me at the presidential level.

[The Vorlon]

Because it's only white voters who actually turn out and vote that matter.

[The Vorlon]

It is late August 1914, and I'm trying to see where von Kluck is heading.  

An obscure, but generally correct metaphor...

Von Kluck: A general who, due to his own catastrophic errors let his forces to a substantial defeat (despite have greater resources than the enemy) and who maintained till his death that the defeat was the result of errors made by others and that he himself was blameless.....  

Not sure the personal reputation for brutality quite fits.. unless 'bama has an unknown dark side....

[The Vorlon]

I corrected you post, Lief, though I doubt that you'll understand immediately.  The Vorlon will.

Yes, I imagine two dumbs who like to make grand and incorrect pronouncements will understand each other well.

Gee, thanks...

I don't quite remember ever remember taking a crap in your morning cornflakes.. but apparently somewhere along the way I did....

[The Vorlon]

UTAH - MASON DIXON:

I'll go out on a limb and declare Utah as "Likely Republican" in 2012

I have DC leaning to the Democrats.

[The Vorlon]

Utah gets to show us what 70% disapproval looks like on the map -- very clearly due to its large area.

There are a couple concerns I have with the way you are doing things.

Firstly, the Nate Silver "analysis" of the 50% rule is tragically flawed.  

Most of the data he used was from 2006 - a very good year for the Dems politically. The Dems also had more folks up for reelection in the Senate than did the GOP.   During the 2006 campaign, the political ground shifted quite substantially in favor of the Dems and away from the GOP... so the fact that many (mostly Dem( incumbants did better than their early polling would have suggested is almost certainly the result of the forces of the political tide, and not the consequence of the "50% rule is crap" theory he might be peddling.  

Also, the Gallup data you are using if from the first 6 months of 2011.  During the first half of 2011 Obama had an average approval (simple average of published Gallup daily results) of 47.22% and a disapproval of 44.54%.

By contrast, a simple average of the last 30 days of Gallups daily tracking poll shows an average approval of 42.1% and and average disapproval of 49.73% - In short Obama has gone from about +3 to about -7 relative to the Jan-Jun 2011 data set you are using. (actually +2.68 to - 7.68 for a net shift of -10.36%, I've rounded to 10% because I don't even pretend what I am doing is accurate enough to have .36% matter)

If we adjust the state by state Gallup Data by simply deducting 5% from Obama's approval and adding 5% to his disapproval, we get a very different picture.

Again, let me concede that simply deduct/adding 5% is far from perfect, but as a very broad stroke general rough and dirty tool, it is likely roughly in the ballpark.  In practice, the shift is likely a little greater in "Battleground" states, and a little smaller is states that are safe for either side.



After adjusting for the shift in Gallup's measurement of Obama's approval between the Jan-June data set and the average of the last 30 days, we find that Obama continues to have a net positive approval in 11 states + DC, representing 163 EVS.

District of Columbia
Connecticut
Maryland
Delaware
Hawaii
New York
Massachusetts
Vermont
California
Illinois
New Jersey
Rhode Island

I think Just about everybody would consider these to be "safe" Obama states.

If we (utterly arbitrarily) say any state where Obama has a net approval of Even to -10 to be a "Battleground" state, we get 10 states totaling 128 EVs.  In terms of "Battleground states" these are, well, "The usual suspects" we all know and love....

Minnesota
Washington
Wisconsin
Maine
Michigan
Iowa
Georgia
Pennsylvania
Florida
North Carolina

Not sure about Georgia, but the rest of the list looks pretty sane as a 2012 battleground....

Finally, if we take the states where Obama is -11 net approval or worse, we have 29 states totaling 237 EVs were, based upon net approval, the GOP likely has a leg up.  A couple of these (Nevada and New Mexico pop out) might not quite fit here ("Battleground" might be a better place) but looking over this list, most of these states look likely GOP.

New Mexico
Virginia
Mississippi
Ohio
South Dakota
Arizona
Arkansas
Colorado
Nevada
Oregon
South Carolina
Indiana
Louisiana
Missouri
Texas
New Hampshire
Alaska
Tennessee
Nebraska
Kansas
North Dakota
Alabama
Kentucky
Montana
West Virginia
Oklahoma
Utah
Wyoming
Idaho

I fully concede this is very rough and dirty, but is should generally capture the impact of the +/- 10% net shift Gallup has tracked since the January-June 2011 data set was collected.

[The Vorlon]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Job-Approval-Center.aspx

Gallup, meh:

Approve:  40%, +1.

Disapprove:  52%, -1.

Very Bad Obama sample dropped today, a very strong Obama sample drops tomorrow - we "might" see a 38% tomorrow... the trough gets a tad deeper..... or (knowing Gallup, he could be back up to 48%....)

[The Vorlon]

I don't think von Kluck has turned yet.  The way it is going, he might not turn southwest until he reaches Versailles.  

There is a tragedy to it all.

My parents remember the USA as the folks who saved them when they were growing up in Nazi occupied Europe.

As a small child, I remember the USA as the nation that was putting a man on the moon.

Oddly, even Watergate was something that inspired me about America because the USA was a place where even the President would be taken down if they broke the laws and violated the values of the Society.

I lived in the US for parts of the 80s and 90s, and even then it was a place of  opportunity and exceptionalism.

I am not sure your nation can stand another failed Presidency.

[The Vorlon]

Our nation has experienced many failed presidencies, and survived well.  It is what comes after that presidency that is important.

It also can mark the re-birth of opportunity and exceptionalism.  We are much greater than our failed leaders, and there were even greater failures.

Winston Churchill once said that:

"The Americans will eventually do the right thing... after having first exhausted all other available options..."

Perhaps "this too shall pass....." but it is indeed sad to see the current goings on.

[The Vorlon]

Obama's downward slide, which isn't much, has continued after the debt debate.  I'm not seeing a connection.

FWIW....

Gallup is quite volatile and it showing Obama at 40% may, or may not, just be one of the tangents Gallup tends to run off on.

Rasmussen which is, by design, very stable shows Obama has dropped 3 ish % or so.

THe RCP average peeked with Obama at +9.9% post Bin Laden killing, he is now 6% or so under water.

A 16% or 17% net swing (+10 to -7 or so) is a heck of a move.



Looking at the trend lines of the RCP average, Obama seems to be losing the day to day battles, his trend line is generally down, but he can and does jump up fairly sharply when there is a "big event" - Killing Bin Laden gave him a sharp jump, as did the semi-deal on taxes where all Americans were spared a tax increase for two more yeas by kicking the Bush Tax Cut expiration down the road till 2013.

Oddly, preserving the tax cuts gave him a bounce that lasted, killing Bin laden did not.

Right now all polls, have very little predictive value.

Th Obama job approval numbers are a rough gauge, but until is 2012, even those have highly limited predictive value.

In October 2012, if BHO's JA is 50%+, he almost certainly wins.
In October 2012, if BHO's JA is <40%, he almost certainly loses.

The head to heads are meaningless right now because most folks are tuned out and don't care.  

The "Generic" ballot will (kinda) tell us if it's gonna be a close race, but beyond that they are pretty limited as well...

At this time in 1979 Carter was kicking the bleep out of some crazy guy from California who was so extreme he could never ever become president...

In 2001 GHW Bush was so far in front, no "big name" democrats (ie Mario Cuomo) was even brave enough to run for President...

14 or so months out head to head presidentials are an "inside baseball" distraction for political junkies, beyond that they have no value.

[The Vorlon]

I disagree a bit.

Carter, at this point in time, was at 33%, and was off his low (28%).

I'm looking at, basically, is how much ground can a president make up in the last 18 months of office.  How much off their low can they go.

Nixon gained 11 points of his 18 month prior low.

Ford gained 9 points.

Carter gained 13 points.  

Reagan gained 13 points.

GHWB gained 8 points.  

Clinton gained 4 points.

GWB had about a 5 point gain.

The average is about 9 points.

Obama would need to gain 10-11 points to win, in most cases.  That is possible, though the odds are slightly against it, arguably.  That assumes that his numbers don't further decline.

I guess my point is that past presidents have have improved to greater or lesser degrees because of events, and those events - looking forward - are unpredictable.

Ford gained 9 points.

Ford took over from a disgraced Nixon, his numbers started to improve as he became his own man and moved out of tricky Dick's shadow.

Carter gained 13 points.  

Carter was hugely in the tank (High 20s as I recall?) but bounced back initially as the people rallied around the President in the beginnings of the hostage crisis - also back then there was no internet or alternative media so for a while the Dems + Networks = NYT almost scared folks out of voting for Reagan.

Reagan gained 13 points.

Went from 10.8% unemployment to "morning in America" - nuff said...

GHWB gained 8 points.  - GHWB likely would have won if not for Perot - Slick Willy won with only 43% of the vote.

Clinton gained 4 points. - hard pivot to triangulation, cut a deal with Newt and the boys to save his skin.

GWB had about a 5 point gain.

The Bush folks did a better job of Demonizing Kerry than Kerry's folks did of demonizing Bush. - Also, Karl Rove put together an awesome "ground game" in Florida, Ohio, etc...

My point is presidents don't just "rebound" they rebound as a result of events and policies....

If Obama finds a brain and a spine in the next year he has a chance, if not, well, not...  but his approval will not, in the absence of some external factor, rise on it's own....

[The Vorlon]

And, the quake knocks the top story of Obama's numbers.

Why would Obama's low going from 39% to 38% be a top story?

There are some folks who have suggested that media outlets such as CBS, Drudge, HoPo, ABC, NYTimes etc may not be 100% entirely balanced and objective in their selection and presentation of news items.

38% represents, at least for now, his low point in the widely watched Gallup poll for Mr. Obama, so a media outlet wishing to present a "narrative" of a deeply troubled, confused, disastrous, and ill-fated presidency might post a headline with "38%" as the lead, to fuel this narrative.

We of course all know that our media are free of such biases.

[The Vorlon]

Polls are really similar right now when it comes to Obama's approval.

If we assign the undecideds in the Gallup and PPP polls, it turns out to about 43-44% approval and 55-57% disapproval for Obama.

Gallup: 40-53 with 7% undecided, lets say they split 3-4 and we have a 43-57 approval.

Rasmussen: 44-55 with 1% undecided, which is about 44.5-55.5 approval.

PPP: 42-53 with 5% undecided, let's say 2-3 for the undecideds and we get a 44-56 approval.

A little bit apples to oranges

Gallup = Adults
PPP = Registered Voters
Rasmussen = Likely Voters/

But ya, no matter how you slice it, -11. -12 or -16 - it's pretty ugly no matter which way you look.

PPP (D) has Obama -11 which has to be pretty scary, and that's with a D+6 sample which is pretty optimistic.

the regional breakout, (West, South, etc) looks a tad funky.

I've never really looked carefully at a PPP poll, but this might be a good time

[The Vorlon]

Rasmussen Obama (National)

Approve 42, -3. -2

Disapprove 57%, +1.

"Strongly Approve" is at 21%, u.  "Strongly Disapprove" is at 45%, +1.

Either a very bad anti-Obama sample is moving through the system, or Obama is slumping.

There are perhaps 6-8 samples that have been worse since Obama was elected.

I think "the bot" had Obama at 44 yesterday.

New AP/Roper poll

http://surveys.ap.org/data/GfK/AP-GfK%20Poll%20Aug%202011%20FINAL%20Topline_ObamaEconomy.pdf

Approve = 46
Disapprove = 52

As always, AP is one of Obama's better polls.

The last AP poll was on June 20th, which showed Obama at +5 (52 / 47) so this represents a net shift of 11% (From +5 to -6)

On June 19th, 2010 the RCP average was Obama + 1.8% and today the RCP average is Obama - 7.5% for a net shift of 9.3%, so AP's 11% shift is broadly consistent with the trend in other polls.

In Party self Identification, Dems outnumber GOPers 29/21 (Dems +8)

Poll also shows 30% indys and 20% "None of these" so party ID is hard to compare to other polls.

Obama still is considered at least "somewhat likable" by 78% of those surveyed.

[The Vorlon]

With Irene coming, we shouldn't rely on national polling after tomorrow, at least until mid week of next week.  There is the potential for a lot of disruption.

It's 15 months before the bleeping election in the middle of summer.

Other than us hard core junkies, nobody cares, much less has though about, any of this.

The polls are meaningless for about another 10 months or so...

[The Vorlon]

Perhaps von Kluck has started moving to the southwest, away from Paris.

If there is indeed a change of direction, so far it's pretty subtle.....

[The Vorlon]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Job-Approval-Center.aspx

Gallup, meh:

Approve:  42%, u.

Disapprove:  50%, u.

WE have had Obama bounce around a fair bit in Gallup.

Can't quite tell it ifs really good samples now and then bouncing him up to 42% or very bad samples now and then dropping him into the thirties.

Think it's the latter actually, but no real way to tell.

Just about everybody says 40-45%, so unless the economy turns around he is in for a really tough race.

Corrected

[The Vorlon]

[The Vorlon]

This map seems oddly familiar.....

[The Vorlon]

[quote author=Tender Branson link=topic=91754.msg3013379#msg3013379

 FL is for sure a battleground state.

[/quote]

Obama carried Florida by 2.81% in 2008.

I am just abut 100% sure Florida is 2.81% less favorable to Obama today than it was in 2008.

[The Vorlon]

Okay, this is starting to seem counter-intuitive. Economy creates no new jobs, stock market tanks yet disapproval declines and approval tanks. Perhaps we are reverting back to where we were pre-debt ceiling crisis, as liberals "get over it" and move back to Obama? Or perhaps we're seeing a pro-recession sample of Tea Partiers who are loving that his chances of re-election are on the decline?

Gallup's polling methods are substantially different than those used by other pollsters, there are just simply some fundemental and structural elements in the way Gallup does things that causes their polls to be erratic, at least when viewed in the short term.

Gallup's tracking poll has a long history of wandering off on it's own (in either direction) before reverting back to the mean. - This is not a criticism of Gallup BTW, there methods have some very substantial advantages as well, unfortunately stability is not one of them.

Rasmussen, at the other extreme, is build to be very stable, it is built almost the opposite of Gallup.

I look at the current crop of polls on the RCP averages and I see on the approval side:

Politico/GWU/Battleground                45
CNN/Opinion Research                        45   
FOX News                                             44      
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl                        44   
Rasmussen Reports                              43   
Gallup                                                43   
ABC News/Wash Post                        43   
Quinnipiac                                        42   

We have, give or take a bit of random error, consensus at 43% or 44%.

If somebody very, very, very gold plated (perhaps NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl) were to show, in a series of polls, a number away from the consensus I would look at it.  But till then, it's all just random noise till proven otherwise.

As they saying goes... "One poll, is, well, one poll....."

[The Vorlon]

Right, but it seems downright WEIRD that Obama can somehow be in the mid 40s with the economy the way it is. Doesn't it?

If the election were held today, I would think Obama gets about 48-49% vs Perry and maybe 47-48% vs Romney. Electorally speaking, Obama-Perry is too close to call (Perry being the slight favorite tbh) and a slight Romney victory. Against someone like Bachmann, Obama would win even in these conditions. IIRC Bush was hanging out around 48-49% when he was re-elected. Though if it was different please feel free to correct me.

Think you are pretty close re Bush approvals in 2004.



FWIW, according to the 2004 exit polls, among those who actually voted, Bush had an approval rating of 51%, which is almost exactly the 50.73% of the vote he actually got on election day....

At the very depths of the Abu Garab (sp?) mess Bush had a net negative approval rating of about  negative5%, But Bush was never definitively and clearly underwater befor the 2004 election, there was a lot of statistical noise where Bush was close to being even in terms of approval and disapproval.

He was able to battle back to +2 or 3% net by election day - a net turnaround of maybe 5% or so.

By contrast, Obama's approval is clearly underwater:



Also, A republican tends to do a little better than the adult/rv polling shows on election day, while a Democrat tends to do a little worse, so the relative gap of Obama 2011 versus Bush 2003 might be a bit bigger than it looks just using the graphs as a guide.

All this being said, the polls some 15 months out are not particularly predictive....

Its a bit interesting how volatile Obama's numbers have been.

Bush's approval ratings "crossed over" only three times (where his net approval went from positive to negative, or negative to positive)

he went (barely) negative during Abu Garab (sp?) then back to slightly positive till the election was over, the crossed back to negative and stayed there...

By contrast, Obama has "crossed over" 5 times already in under three years....

[The Vorlon]

There is another possibility of course. That being that if the president has lost almost all the sway-able voters described above then he'd be near his base partisan limit. Basically the folks that would vote for a terrible Democrat in almost all cases because they know the Republican will always be worse for them and their interests. This kind of base solidity is not very well understood as some people claim to be persuadable but always seem to pull the lever for one party, and thus are not easily identified by polls and only sometimes by demographics (for instances, African American voters) So if this is the case, you could have 15% unemployment and the President would be maintaining 40% approval.

The question then is, what about the end of the Bush years when his approvals dropped crazy low? It might be that the Republican super base is much smaller then it likes to think itself or a very different dynamic was in play. Because Bush was not up for reelection in 2008, his base voters were liberated from having to pretend they like him. This plays well in two different directions. It allows some of them to feel good about themselves because Bush 'wasn't a real conservative'. Another direction is simply jumping on the bandwagon. The rest of the country was starting to hate him, so if one is going to keep looking like a mainstream guy, ya gotta start hating him to.

If Obama is reelected and things go much worse then they are today, it will be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out. I'd prefer of course that the economy grows strong and the yahoos who can hire start doing so again. But if disaster hits an Obama second term you might see him dip below his solid base level.

But I'm not sure what that is yet.

You hit the nail on the head.

A huge chunk of voters are ideology driven, not reality driven.

When Bush Jr. turned out to be a bit of a disaster, it his base deserted him, not because conservatism was wrong, but because Bush wasn't conservative enough.... Their beliefs were correct, Bush was just an imperfect servant to their ideology.

Similarly, Obama's support to the degree they they are discontented, is again ideologically based.

Obama's own prediction for the Stimulus package was that he would keep unemployment under 8% - Despite Democratic post facto carping, the Democratic super majorities in both the House and Senate gave Obama every single penny he asked for...

So now that Unemployment is stuck above 9% when Obama's own prediction was that it would be 6.5% by now... - this is not because Obama's stimulus package was inherently flawed, it was because it was too small... (see Jack Krugman)

If only Obama octupled the size of the deficit instead of only tripling it, things would be much better...

Even in absolute utter blowout years AuH₂0 1964, H³ in 1972, Mondale in 1984, the losing candidate still got 40+ of the vote.

Barring a really strong 3rd party candidate, It is pretty hard to be a major party candidate and get less than 40%.

[The Vorlon]

Ayres, McHenry & Associates (R):

47% Approve
50% Disapprove

http://www.resurgentrepublic.com/system/assets/428/original/RR_August_Toplines.pdf

Am I reading the first question correctly?  Is it a poll of people answering on cell phones?

Nope, it's a dual frame (ie cells and land lines)

Ayres, McHenry & Associates is actually a pretty solid firm.  Most of the higher ups are alumni of Public Opinion Strategies

They do things a bit different in that most dual frame samples they complete the survey if the cell phone is peoples ONLY phone , but A H & A essentially makes no distinction between cell phones and land lands, they RDD all exchanges (cell and land) without establishing a strict quota  to divide between the two types.  It's a bit cheaper to do it that way actually as well.