Hitting the ceiling?
President Barack Obama had another uneventful month in the polls last month. I realize that's a pretty dull way to start a column, but we do the best with the data we are given, so to speak. Obama's average approval rate and disapproval rate both got better by the slimmest of margins -- one-tenth of a point -- which places him pretty much where he ended the past two months. His approval rating stayed above his disapproval rating, but by a margin of less than a full percentage point.
To liven up this morass of dullness, we are going to quickly run through the numbers here, and then we're going to take a look at what it all might mean in the upcoming election, by doing something we haven't done for a while -- comparing Obama to his predecessors' ratings.
First, let's take a look at the new chart for April:
[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]
April, 2012
April began with Mitt Romney essentially wrapping up the Republican nomination, and the media frenzy surrounding the horserace immediately abated (somewhat). Personally, I got so bored with the situation that I took a break and had some fun with the primary graphs, just to kill time. The political scene was so downright dull that the Supreme Court actually led the news not just once but twice this month, with two important cases that will likely make some waves in June, when the decisions are handed down. The Republican "War On Women" continued, with the Republicans taking a novel "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" stance on the situation: "War on women? What war on women? You mean all those anti-women laws we're passing? Please, pay no attention whatsoever to that -- it's all the Democrats' fault for refusing to stop bringing up what we're actually legislatively trying to do!"
Sigh. It seems the silly season has come early, this year.
There were a few minor scandals last month, but neither of them was particularly political in nature, and therefore don't have much bearing on how the public views the president. Internationally, North Korea tried (and failed) to launch a satellite, and the situation with Iran seems to be getting better -- which caused gas prices to stop climbing. Gas is still expensive, but Americans don't seem to be blaming Obama for this situation in the polls (not much, at any rate). The unemployment rate ticked down one-tenth of a percent last month, which didn't hurt Obama (but also didn't help him much, either). President Obama took advantage of the lull in the political world to launch his own reelection campaign, roughly mid-month.
This was all reflected in the polling. President Obama chalked up one of the most stable months in day-to-day poll averages ever. In fact, only one month (September of last year) was more stable. Both his daily approval average and his daily disapproval average fluctuated less than two percentage points over the course of the month. This was despite a poll which was wildly worse than all the others in the mix, mid-month (a poll that put Obama's approval at 43 percent, which was criticized by other pollsters for lowballing minorities' opinions). Obama's daily numbers did go below water mid-month as a result, but they largely recovered by the end of the month.
Obama's monthly average approval moved up one tiny tick to end the month at 47.8 percent. His monthly disapproval average moved down one tiny tick to end the month at 47.1 percent. While any improvement is good news for the president, the magnitude of the good news is as small as it possibly could be. Which isn't really great news at all.
Overall Trends
Rather than talk about the overall trends this month (which we could do in one word: "flat"), we're going to instead take a look at the larger political picture Obama faces in the upcoming election.
President Obama has a problem which must cause no end of headaches in the White House politics office: he seems to have a built-in "ceiling" of around 49 percent approval. Discounting his first year in office -- when he was still riding the "honeymoon" goodwill -- Obama has posted an approval rating better than 49 percent exactly twice. One of these doesn't even really count, as it was the bounce he got one year ago when Osama bin Laden was killed. The other time was when he hit 49.4 percent last February. Other than those two instances, Obama has spent the last 27 months below 49 percent approval. Which, as I said, must make the politicos working for him reach for the aspirin, often.
Now, job approval ratings are decidedly not the same thing as "Who are you going to vote for?" polling. But it'd be foolish to argue that the two aren't at least related. The worrying thing for Obama's campaign is that the "rule of thumb" for presidential approval ratings is that if you're riding above 50 percent, chances are you'll be reelected. But this is precisely what Obama has trouble with -- gaining the last two points between 48 and 50.
We thought, at this point, it'd be interesting to compare Obama with previous presidents, to see what history has to say about his reelection chances (note: clicking on the following links will show you a comparison graph of Obama and the first term of the president mentioned).
Two of the last five presidents were comfortably above 50 percent at this point in their first term, and both went on to be reelected handily. Ronald Reagan spent nearly a year with just over 40 percent approval, but he had snapped out of this slump and by now was at 54.0 percent approval. Bill Clinton had likewise spent a long stretch in the 40s, but by this point he had a 52.3 percent approval rating. Neither man would slip below 50 percent for the rest of the year, and both won second terms.
Two other presidents were in much worse shape. George H.W. Bush had sky-high approval ratings after the Gulf War, but by January of the election year, they had slipped to a disastrous 40.5 percent. This continued until the election, when he only managed 34.0 percent approval in October. Jimmy Carter had a national security "bump" of his own when the Iran hostage crisis hit, but it had crashed back down by this point, when he stood at 39.0 percent approval. After the next month (at 40.5 percent approval), Carter's numbers would remain in the 30s for the rest of his term. Both men, of course, lost their reelection bid.
Which brings us to what could be the closest indicator of the election campaign we now face. This graph is so amazingly close I'm going to just paste in it for all to see:
[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]
While George W. Bush also had two national security peaks (9/11 and the invasion of Iraq), both had faded by this point. Bush's numbers and Obama's have been almost exactly tracking each other for the past three months. Bush had a 48.6 approval rating at this point, and a 46.9 percent disapproval rating. Both are within one point of where Obama now stands. Bush's numbers stayed pretty flat for the entire election season, until they finally limped over 50 percent and he eked out a win in 2004. In his second term, his approval numbers fell off a cliff, but that's not really germane to the subject at hand.
Now, it is impossible to say that Obama will chart the same course Bush did in 2004. The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that the 2012 election will indeed be a close one, no matter what the Electoral College vote winds up being in November. This will be a campaign fought on the tiniest of margins, to put it another way.
Obama is much weaker politically than Reagan or Clinton was at this point. But he's also a lot stronger politically than Carter or the first Bush. Obama faces a candidate much weaker than he, at least in the current polling, but that is no guarantee of success. If Obama cannot manage to pull his approval up above 50 percent (and keep it there) for the rest of the year, this election could be the nail-biter that some are now predicting.
[Obama Poll Watch Data:]
Sources And Methodology
ObamaPollWatch.com is an admittedly amateur effort, but we do try to stay professional when it comes to revealing our sources and methodology. All our source data comes from RealClearPolitics.com; specifically from their daily presidential approval ratings "poll of polls" graphic page. We take their daily numbers, log them, and then average each month's data into a single number -- which is then shown on our monthly charts here (a "poll of polls of polls," if you will...). You can read a much-more detailed explanation of our source data and methodology on our "About Obama Poll Watch" page, if you're interested.
Questions or comments? Use the Email Chris page to drop me a private note.
Column Archives
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Obama's All-Time Statistics
Monthly
Highest Monthly Approval -- 2/09 -- 63.4%
Lowest Monthly Approval -- 10/11 -- 43.4%
Highest Monthly Disapproval -- 9/11, 10/11 -- 51.2%
Lowest Monthly Disapproval -- 1/09 -- 19.6%
Daily
Highest Daily Approval -- 2/15/09 -- 65.5%
Lowest Daily Approval -- 10/9/11 -- 42.0%
Highest Daily Disapproval -- 8/30/11 -- 53.2%
Lowest Daily Disapproval -- 1/29/09 -- 19.3%
Obama's Raw Monthly Data
[All-time high in bold, all-time low underlined.]
Month -- (Approval / Disapproval / Undecided)
04/12 -- 47.8 / 47.1 / 5.1
03/12 -- 47.7 / 47.2 / 5.1
02/12 -- 48.2 / 47.2 / 4.6
01/12 -- 46.3 / 48.3 / 5.4
12/11 -- 45.1 / 49.5 / 5.4
11/11 -- 44.4 / 50.2 / 5.4
10/11 -- 43.4 / 51.2 / 5.4
09/11 -- 43.5 / 51.2 / 5.3
08/11 -- 43.8 / 50.7 / 5.5
07/11 -- 46.2 / 47.8 / 6.0
06/11 -- 48.5 / 46.0 / 5.5
05/11 -- 51.4 / 43.1 / 5.5
04/11 -- 46.4 / 48.2 / 5.4
03/11 -- 48.1 / 46.4 / 5.5
02/11 -- 49.4 / 44.5 / 6.1
01/11 -- 48.5 / 45.7 / 5.8
12/10 -- 45.5 / 48.1 / 6.4
11/10 -- 45.5 / 49.0 / 5.5
10/10 -- 45.5 / 49.1 / 5.4
09/10 -- 45.7 / 49.7 / 4.6
08/10 -- 45.3 / 49.5 / 5.2
07/10 -- 46.6 / 47.4 / 6.0
06/10 -- 47.6 / 46.7 / 5.7
05/10 -- 48.1 / 45.5 / 6.4
04/10 -- 47.8 / 46.5 / 5.7
03/10 -- 48.1 / 46.4 / 5.5
02/10 -- 47.9 / 46.1 / 6.0
01/10 -- 49.2 / 45.3 / 5.5
12/09 -- 49.4 / 44.9 / 5.7
11/09 -- 51.1 / 43.5 / 5.4
10/09 -- 52.2 / 41.9 / 5.9
09/09 -- 52.7 / 42.0 / 5.3
08/09 -- 52.8 / 40.8 / 6.4
07/09 -- 56.4 / 38.1 / 5.5
06/09 -- 59.8 / 33.6 / 6.6
05/09 -- 61.4 / 31.6 / 7.0
04/09 -- 61.0 / 30.8 / 8.2
03/09 -- 60.9 / 29.9 / 9.2
02/09 -- 63.4 / 24.4 / 12.2
01/09 -- 63.1 / 19.6 / 17.3
Chris Weigant blogs at: 
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Dan Collins: Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani Still Not Ready for Prime Time
Chris Weigant: Obama Poll Watch, March 2012
Jesse Contario: Rising Gas Prices May Hurt Obama, but Republicans Poised to Overplay Their Hand
Chris Weigant: Obama Poll Watch -- February, 2012
RealClearPolitics - Election Other - President Obama Job Approval
Gallup: Obama approval rating highest since bin Laden killing ...
Obama April approval highest since bin Laden death - POLITICO.com
United States presidential approval rating - Wikipedia, the free ...
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Gallup has released Barack Obama’s average job approval percentage for the first quarter of his 2012 reelection campaign – 45.9%. As points of comparison, previous presidents who won reelection enjoyed approval in their thirteenth quarter in office ranging from Eisenhower’s 73.2% to George W. Bush’s 51.0%. Mr. Obama’s approval stands between the 41.8% of George H.W. Bush and the 47.7% of Jimmy Carter at the same point in their presidencies.
http://thecitizenpamphleteer.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/cant-get-no-satisfaction/
Presidents seeking reelection generally get the votes of folks who approve of them and sometimes not all of them, which is why it is vital that a President have more than 50% job approval among a realistic sample of registered voters. (The last preelection Gallup poll for Bush in 2004 was an outlier as the Gallup polls before and after as well as the 2004 exit polling all had Bush's approval at about the same percentage of his final vote).
Mr. Obama's problem is that more than 50% of the voters have not approved of his job performance since 2009. It is difficult to see how that changes over the next six months. Mr. Weigant is correct that Obama appears to have a ceiling, but that ceiling is not close to the majority he needs for reelection.
OK, I get grief for averaging polls monthly, but even I've got to say that a "quarterly" average is stuffing one whale of a lot of data into a single number.
Also, we've moved on since Q1, 12: Gallup has Obama at 51% job approval today. Interestingly, a Democratic poll (Democracy Corps) has him at 45% today, which kind of cuts against the grain of your first sentence (Rasmussen even has him at 50%).
As for Obama's election chances, even national "who would you vote for" polls are almost completely meaningless -- you've got to break it down to Electoral College votes, state by state. That's the only way to see what his chances in Nov will be.
-CW
Thanks for the response.
The advantage of the quarterly polling average and why Gallup calculates it is to smooth out the noise of daily polling. I have some problems with Gallup's current registered voter weighting methodology, but they do have the advantage using essentially the same methodology over several decades so we can compare past campaigns.
I am concentrating on the popular vote because the chance of Romney winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote to Obama ala 2000 is simply too remote. Indeed, Romney could win a rather narrow popular vote victory and pile up the electoral votes if the midwest white working class vote goes GOP the way it did in 2010. PA, MI and WI are truly in play in this election.
Just curious: if Ron Paul were on a third-party ticket, would you vote for him? How about Bloomberg? Any other ideas as to who should jump in? A strong third-party bid could change the entire face of this election, that's for sure.
-CW
Yeah, I know, dream on.
The biggest bait and switch in American history.
OK, I looked at it sideways and it looked like a psychedelic zipper. Maybe it's just me....
I did like your "hold onto your brains" quip, there. That's about an apt piece of advice as could be given, at this point...
One factor which not a lot of people have noticed (The New Yorker did a bit on it a few months ago) is that one of Romney's (or maybe his super PAC, same difference) key ad men is the same guy who did the infamous "Willie Horton" ad. This is part of the reason his negative advertising was so effective in the primaries (best ad I've seen yet was the "too much baggage" anti-Newt ad). In the general, this will be directed against Obama -- again, a factor not many have noticed.
It's going to be a long summer and fall, and we're all going to want to shower after watching the slime and mud be flung on our teevees, that's for sure.
-CW
>It's going to be a long summer and fall, and we're all going to want to shower after watching the slime and mud be flung on our teevees, that's for sure.
Pretty much agree with that.
Even if Romney were to choose Portman as his vice president nominee, I think Obama still wins Ohio(lots of jobs dependent on the auto industry).
That will hurt Romney(his stance on the auto bailout).
I also think McConnell and other GOPERS in Virginia have hurt the GOP brandname with their amazing attacks on abortion and contraception.
Which is why I think Virginia is trending Democrat.
Florida will be a tough state for Obama to win.
Rapidly growing southwest corridor is filled with very conservative Republicans, and the elderly vote will still go for Romney...despite Romney's embrace of Ryan budget....as incredible as that seems.
Would not be surprised to see Florida go for Romney.
It is interesting Arizona is in the undecided category. Normally that is a dependable GOP state.
I agree it should be in the undecided category.
On Weigant's piece, I think Obama's approval numbers will go up a "tick", if the economy continues to modestly improve between now and November.
Starting in a few weeks (possibly at the end of this month), I'll be starting a different column series giving my own analysis of the Electoral Math numbers, and my state-by-state calls. I did this back in 2004, and it was a lot of fun.
As for your calls:
OH - completely agree. Obama locked up Ohio and Michigan with the auto bailout. May even be a factor in IN, but Romney'll likely edge him out there.
VA - this was the biggest shocker for me in the 2008 election. VA Democratic? Say whaa-aa--?
I hope Obama can win it again, which will prove the demographics in the state have changed in a big way (which might also eventually turn GA purple, as well -- suburbs around Atlanta's growing influence...). Think Dems will hold onto Webb's Senate seat?
FL - I think you may be right, although I think it'll be as close as FL normally is, these days.
AZ - well, they had a "favorite son" on the ticket last time, which tended to obscure the demographics which have changed CO and NM and NV into blue (or blueish-purple) states. This time that won't be a factor.
As for Obama's approval numbers, I think getting unemployment below 8.0 percent will be a big psychological boost which may push Obama over 50. Or at least over 49...
-CW
If unemployment is at 8.0% or below, by November, Obama probably wins.
You don't need to respond to this question, but if you do, that is fine with me, also(for I know you are busy):
Given the rather dramatic fall-off of support among women and among Hispanics for Romney and the GOP resulting from their stance on Planned Parenthood, contraception, "papers please" law in Arizona..which Romney endorsed, AND the impact the Ryan plan will have on women and Hispanics in cuts to social safety net programs and Medicaid, why is this race so close nationally in head-to-head matchups between Obama and Romney?
Are these groups being sampled adequately by pollsters?
I do believe the fall-off in support is real.
>As for Obama's approval numbers, I think getting unemployment below 8.0 percent will be a big psychological boost which may push Obama over 50. Or at least over 49...
The polls will fluctuate so wildly over the next few months and I think you are correct that the general election numbers will be closer then the electoral college Numbers.
In 2004 the unemployment rate was 5.5% which is considered good. GDP growth was between 3 and 4 % also higher then now, and Gas prices were about $1.80 a gallon.
So the election and polling of Presidential popularity was not economy focused.
But Like Romney said "It’s still about the economy …and we’re not stupid. "
>But Like Romney said "It’s still about the economy …and we’re not stupid. "
I wonder if he'll get a bump from his Osama anniversary tour.
Sssshhh! You're undermining the whole purpose of this column series!
Heh.
I have to agree with you. The polls during Obama's term have been some of the most-stable of any president, ever (polling's only been around since FDR, to qualify that).
His "floor" seems to be around 43-44 percent, and his "ceiling" around 49 percent. I think his true possible ceiling for the election is around one point higher than he won in 2008, which would be about 54%. I don't think anything above that is even really possible, to put it another way.
But it is astounding at how steady it is, no matter what happens. I think the most influential outside influence this November is going to be unemployment. If it's at, say, 7.6 percent, that'd be one thing. If it's still at 8.3 percent, that's another thing.
Even Obama's "Bin Laden bounce" (even in the daily polls) was extremely small -- compare it to the gigantic boost Carter got initially when the hostage crisis happened, for example. Good or bad, O's numbers just don't change that much.
-CW
----------------------------
But remember, Bush only won the 2004 election because he was running against someone who was too rich and stiff to connect with the American voters, whereas Obama ... Oh, never mind.
I want to know what all that talk about "Change" was?