The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread

[Smash255]

His final nation poll was good, yes, but his state polls were pretty mediocre.

not really relevant if we're talking about a current national poll

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe his polls leading into the election were a bit more GOP friendly.  He got it close at the very end, but a week or so out IIRC he was a bit off, though I don't remember exactly what he had.

One other thing to mention is when a President is popular he seems to have lower approvals than everyone else and when a President isn't popular his numbers seem to be better than everyone else.  Rasmussen tended to be the pollster where Bush had the highest approvals (the last several years) and where Obama has had his worst numbers.  Hard to say if that has to do with the way its asked (Strongly, somewhat approve/disapprove), a more GOP lean, or the LV screen, but the fact Rasmussen was Bush's best pollster & Obama's worst is interesting nonetheless.

[Smash255]

PPP National

Approve 53%
Disapprove 41%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_National_423.pdf

Geez an approval even lower than the Republican hack Rasmussen???

And Pew has him at 63-26 and AP/GfK at 64-30.
So apparently PPP is the odd one here.

Weren't Democrats criticizing AP late in the 2008 presidential race when it showed Obama only up by 2 points?

A poll for an election is different to a poll for approval though.

Translation: When it shows what I want it's a good pollster, when it doesn't, it's trash.

Ehh its more along the lines of looking at the consensus.......   The AP poll from October was called out because it showed results far different from virtually every other pollster, which is the same reason why PPP is being called out now.

[Smash255]

I highly doubt Obama still has 60% + Approvals for doing nothing productive in the entire time as president. It'll be funny if the pollsters show Obama's #'s go up if GM or Chrysler close down.

All these polls are B.S , you can thank the media for that

How old are you? Just curious.

14.

Ahhh......

[Smash255]

You can't even compare Obama to Reagan or FDR or even LBJ.  And if anything, it's the left that's recalcitrant.  Or at least they were when Bush was president.  The right is only giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Yeah, it's all the fault of the recalcitrant left who voted against Bush's tax cuts, the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, Bush's Prescription Drug Benefit, etc.

Actually the Iraq War would have went much smoother had the left not kept getting in the way of Bush's actions and constantly criticizing him.

Ok so wait.  Your attempting to argue that the Iraq war went the way it did because of people who held protests and not  because of the people within the Bush administration who made the decisions and  'planning'  (cough)??  Is that what your trying to argue here??

[Smash255]

What is this Arizona is very likely to flip farce? I know the favorite son effect blah blah blah occurred in 08 but does anyone remember AZ has voted GOP in every election (excluding 96) since 1952, both Senators are Republicans (Kyl being one of the MOST conservative in the Senate and McCain is moving sharply to the right as well) and the GOP controls the Governor's Mansion and BOTH houses of the State Legislature and have controlled all those marbles for some time. Arizona is bright red despite Clinton being able to take it once in a 3 way race.

Jan Brewer was NOT elected to be Governor of Arizona.  She was elected to be Sec of State and took over the Governor's mansion when Democrat Janet Naplitano (who was first elected in the strong GOP year of 2002) resigned to take the Sec of  Homeland Security position within the Obama admin.

I'm not suggesting Arizona will flip, though no more home state advantage + continued GOP problems with the growing Hispanic vote could make it much more competitive than it was.

[Smash255]

Arizona's voters have demonstrated a loyalty to the GOP at all levels of the government consistently. The 2008 vote is muddied by the fact that so many areas broke with the GOP that normally vote for it. Ignoring the way people voted in one cycle and then running in and saying there is a massive "favorite son" effect and next time the state will flip after 50 years for absolutely no reason is absurd.

I'm not denying there IS a favorite son factor but having it be absent doesn't mean a 50 year or 20 or 30 or whatever voting streak will change.

John McCain did less well in Arizona than one would expect in a state voting so firmly Republican and thus having a GOP political culture. Arizona is most similar in its demographics to Nevada and Colorado.  The 2008 vote suggests that economic conditions and demographic change have eroded the certainty of Republican wins in subsequent years.  The Favorite Son effect masked the obvious fact that Arizona has been drifting D. Without a Favorite Son (and I doubt that John Kyl will be running for President) , Arizona willl be a legitimate battleground for the 2012 election.

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I don't live in  Virginia or North Carolina, so I can't fully explain their politics except to say that they have gone from being more rural than the national average to being more urban. It's arguable that Virginia has become a Northern state in its politics. North Carolina? Lots of Northerners  have brought their voting patterns with them. One joke about one North Carolina suburb is that Cary stands for Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.

Indiana? I live in southwestern Michigan, so I get to know a little about Indiana politics. In 2008 the state acted as if it had a Favorite Son -- Obama. The Favorite Son effect may be more relevant to news media than to campaign efforts. Much of Indiana media feed from or into Illinois, where Obama was a Senator.  Because of the state's off transportation network (despite its size, Indianapolis is not a great airline hub, and most air traffic in Indiana goes through Chicago), the state is ordinarily difficult to set up a campaign apparatus in from outside -- unless the other state is Illinois. About 90% of all air travel to or from Indiana goes through O'Hare International Airport, with a little going through Detroit and Cincinnati. The economy was messed up due at first to high energy prices (which hit the RV industry hard); those energy prices abated just as the financial  meltdown hit (people could better afford to drive RVs, but they couldn't get financing so easily). Ouch! Obama actually campaigned in Indiana, which Democrats from outside the area don't ordinarily do in a contested election.

Hillary Clinton would definitely have lost Indiana. JFK lost the state by 11 points in one of the closest elections ever, and neither Gore nor Kerry could get close.  It's hard to campaign in Indiana  from Massachusetts (JFK, Kerry), Tennessee (Gore), Georgia (Carter),  Arkansas (Clinton), or even Minnesota (HHH). Adlai Stevenson was from Illinois, but he couldn't win anything in the North. Hillary Clinton would have had a hard time campaigning in Indiana from New York. Oddly, Obama turned the table on McCain, exposing the difficulty of having to campaign in Indiana from a long distance.  

Bush won Arizona by 6 in 2000 and 11 in 2004. McCain won it by 8 in a crappy GOP year. 2000 was an average GOP year and Bush took it by 6, so  the favorite son effect helped the GOP in a bad year but its ludicrous to suggest Arizona will magically flip in 2012 when it didn't stay Dem in 2000.

What is with the massive Indiana speech? You threw in some random statement about Ford winning Michigan but losing states that were much like it to Carter and you tried to link that to Arizona.

Indiana isn't ANYTHING like Michigan or Illinois (even in Indianapolis) I dont know if you;ve ever been there but just because some of the airwaves broadcast over from Chicago doesn't by any stretch of the imagination make it like IL and MI. Regardless, you threw some random statement at me about Carter winning non-Carter friendly states well Obama won states that had non-Obama friendly backgrounds, big whoop. What does it have to do with Arizona???

Arizona I think is thrown into the mix if Obama wins by a somewhat similar margin nationally in 2012 than he did in 2008.   If you look at how Arizona compared to the national average in 2000 and 2004, it was in line with Obama's 08 margin.  6.79% more GOP in 2000, 8.01% more GOP in 04, Obama won nationally by 7.28% in 08. 

Granted that doesn't exactly mean Arizona will be in that range in 2012, but its not out of the question especially with the problems the GOP has with the Hispanic vote (which wasn't really seen last year in Arizona because of McCain, but will pretty much be seen with anyone else in 2012)

Its even possible that we can see Arizona trend a few points in the Dems direction compared to the national average with no more home state effect as the neighboring states all did (New Mexico, nevada & Colorado) and Obama could pull off Arizona with a national victory of 5-6 points, but I think that is unlikely.  My guess is he probably would need a slightly larger national victory than he had in 2008 to pull it off in 2012 (7.5-8%) and anything around 4 or 5% could make Arizona quite close.  With that being said if Obama wins Arizona or even if he makes it within a couple points there the election will already be over.

[Smash255]

Kentucky (R2000/DailyKos)

34% Favorable
63% Unfavorable

Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?

51% Yes
20% No
29% Not Sure

The Research 2000 Kentucky Poll was conducted from August 31 through September 2, 2009. A total of 600 likely voters who vote regularly in state elections were interviewed statewide by telephone.

http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/9/2/KY/355

Holy F***

[Smash255]

62-65%, then drop back a bit, but settle higher than where he has been (mid 50's)

[Smash255]

Gallup:

Approve: 50 (+3)
Disapprove: 42 (-2)

Hardly earth-shattering.

Is that the tracking poll? If so, that is quite a bit of movement.

Its the tracking, it was 46-45 prior to the death of OBL, so so far its +4 approval, -3 disapproval.  1/3 of the tracking poll is still prior to OBL's death (the first tracking poll that will be completely after his  death will be tomorrow.

Rasmussen's #'s are very strange to say the least, could be a bad sample, perhaps he had a very strong sample on Sat falling off, and a poor one on Sunday still there.  Similar to Gallup, the first tracking poll taken completely after OBL's death wil be released tomorrow, but the numbers are still strange.