Since 2001, Congressional approval has declined by an average of 4.17 percent each year. This trend line reaches zero by 2016.

In April, Obama's numbers returned to a normal level, after experiencing a very short post-election "honeymoon period" with the public which bounced his numbers up to a peak, and then bounced them right back down again.

President Obama lost almost all the ground he had gained late in the 2012 election season. He hit a new low in approval and a new high in disapproval for his second term, as the honeymoon bounce completely evaporated.

As expected, Obama's "second honeymoon" in the polls is starting to fade. The election is long over, the inauguration is fading from memory, and now the real legislative struggles of Obama's second term have begun.

WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) - Less than two months into his second term, President Barack Obama's approval rating has dropped and Americans blame ...

WASHINGTON -- Public approval for Congress remains near an all-time low, but lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives aren't doing much about it...

Obama's "second honeymoon" period with the public may not last more than a few months, but for now seems to be holding steady. He's in a pretty good position right now in terms of "political capital," but this will likely change as legislative reality sets in.

Obama is currently enjoying not only a vacation with his family in Hawai'i, but also a "second honeymoon" with the public at large. If history is any guide, the fiscal cliff deal could create another wave of approval on top of the "second honeymoon."

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.

President Barack Obama's job approval numbers are back "above water" (where his approval rate is higher than his disapproval number), continuing an impressive rise in the polls, which began in November of last year.

While 2011 was a volatile year for the president, he didn't lose all that much ground. He ended the year on an upswing, and while he still isn't in great shape for the election, he is heading upwards and things are looking a lot better than they did a few months ago.

This month Obama poll watchers got some good news, and some bad news. This was capped off by the Washington punditocracy making a stupid comparison between polling for Obama and Carter.

Newly released state-by-state approval numbers for President Obama suggest that in 2012 he could face fewer options for assembling an Electoral Colleg...

[Program Note: Last month, we ran this column four days before the end of May, due to travel plans. We promised we'd update the preliminary numbers i...

"What a difference a death makes." President Obama announced at the very beginning of the month that Osama bin Laden was dead, and his poll numbers reacted almost immediately.

April was a pretty miserable month for Barack Obama, mostly due to the high price of gasoline at the pump. But May is already shaping up to be one of Obama's best months ever, for one very obvious reason.

While catastrophic world events dominated the news for most of the month, Obama's approval rating was being hit with a creeping domestic problem -- the rising price of gasoline.

In terms of shifts in public opinion, January and February were the best two months President Obama has yet had during his entire presidency.

When taken month-to-month, January, 2011, was Obama's best month of his entire presidency. Not only did he finally get his bump -- but it was a truly significant bump.

Obama once again charted an unbelievably stable month in terms of approval ratings. The mildly good news was in his disapproval rating, which dropped significantly over the course of December.

Obama just had his most stable month ever in the public opinion polls, capping off a remarkable year of polling stability. Were you to just read the headlines or listen to the soundbites, you may have a different impression.