A new ABC WashPost poll out this a.m. (it’s mostly about the health care bill, and the public doesn’t like it) shows Pres. Obama with an overall approval rating of 50 percent. Although that’s not good news for him considering where he started the year, and it’s the lowest rating yet in an ABC/Post poll, it’s actually a titch higher than most other recent polls have measured.
Both Pollster.com and Real Clear Politics, which publish averages of many polls, show Obama approval averaging in the 48’s. Most (but not all) polls still show slightly more approvers than disapprovers, but the difference begins to border on negligible.
Those, like me, who cling to the audacity of hope for Obama’s term, don’t need to panic over these polls. It’s extremely normal for a president’s approval to drift down during the first year (absent an event like the 9/11 attacks) and far from unprecedented for a president to fall below 50 during that year. Bill Clinton hit his all-time Gallup approval rating low of 37 percent during his first year (and was nonetheless reelected in a near-landslide). This wikipedia piece has a cool collection of graphs tracking the rise and falls of approval for all recent presidents.
“The strongest predictor of presidential approval is time in office,” Larry Jacobs just told me. “Time goes by, things build up, problems develop.”
But these ratings ain’t good. In these polarized times, the key to any politicians approval rating is their standing with independents. The new ABC/WashPost poll is the first time those pollsters Obama with more disapprovers than approvers among independents.
On specific issues, disapprovers outnumbered approvers on Obama’s handling of health care, the economy, the deficit and (just barely) unemployment. Approvers outnumbered disapprovers on Obama’s performance as commander-in-chief and his handling of Afghanistan. (I call particular attention to this last, since in my piece after Obama’s Afghanistan escalation speech, I implied that support for the war would not hold up. We’ll see.)
Perhaps the best news in the poll for Obama and for Dems in general was the series of questions on those same issues that asked whether the public had more confidence in Obama or in Congressional Republicans to handle the economy, health care, Afghanistan or energy policy. A plurality of respondents prefers Obama by about 10 percentage points on each. Certainly this suggests that Obama’s struggles on overall approval does not reflect a public that likes the alternative better, but a public that isn’t excited about any of the alternatives.
Said Jacobs, when I asked him about those Obama-versus-the-Repubs questions: “That one thing about politics. It’s not absolute. It’s always comparative shopping.” The Repubs have done a great job, so far, of opposing all things Obamian and blocking health care legislation, but they don’t offer a real alternative. Jacobs said that in their current just-say-no posture Republicans run the risk of not being taken seriously as a potential governing party.
What think?
They repubs did a great job winning elections and
a lousy job of governing for almost eight years.
Now they are attacking Obama at every turn for trying to govern. Sadly, they are succeeding in
branding the war, the deficit, unemployment and the healthcare stalemate as his doing. Real economic and health care reform will not happen
as long as corporatists call the shots in the
White House and the congress.
Opposition without real alternatives was the defining characteristic of the Dems during GWB’s second term. Seemed to work out pretty well for them. The current power structure is guilty of almost every single thing they accused the previous administration of (corruption, incompetence, extreme partisianship, lack of fiscal discipline). I think that gives them a much shorter leash than they otherwise would have. Anyone who cared about out of control deficits under Bush should be outraged by Obama’s first year, etc.
When the convenient boogey man (GWB) is not available to distract, the American public is left to observe how a well spoken, but demonstrably unprepared Chief Executive governs.
Eric fails to mention that Rasmussen has P-Bo at 42% approval. Rasmussen limits it’s polling to likely voters.
I really wish people had taken a moment to consider what a hollow, utterly meaningless campaign Obama really ran. The majority bought “Hope and Change”…without the slightest idea of what that meant. (Nothing)
The fact is, P-BO’s administration has primarily consisted of taking up the most ill considered actions of his predecessors’ administration and making them even worse.
Right now, the best we can hope for is a mid-term that restores the congress to the GOP’s majority, and that they use that majority to put a gridlock in place that allows for a period of careful re-consideration and back tracking.
Remember, that outcome was the best thing that ever happened to Bill Clinton’s administration. A nice balance between the congress and the executive had excellent results for the country.
Rod: “Real economic and health care reform will not happen
as long as corporatists call the shots in the
White House and the congress. ”
I take it that you’re supporting libertarian or green party candidates for the time being then?
Whether it’s for you or agin you, never trust a poll, except the one on election day. And even then, as the past year’s experience has shown, don’t trust a poll unless it has a good spread.
Too many variables are not considered.
Makes for fun for political fanatics, though.
I have to agree with John. Or as someone recently put it, “when one poll has your dauber down, just wait for the next one.”
All daubers aside, the poll that will really matter will be the one in 2012.