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The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 31% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -9 (see trends).
Just 6% of voters now expect a tax cut during the Obama years. Forty-two percent (42%) expect their taxes to go up. A Rasmussen video report notes that the Country Financial Security Index slipped to a record low last month.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter and Facebook.
Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove.

Johann Galt wrote: ...31% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve... Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove...

DAR
Bah. Why would it make sense to subtract the two "strong" categories? Explain.

The last eight job approval polls for Obama listed at polling report have:

NBC: 51% (8/15-17/09)

FOX/OD RV 53% (8/11-12/09)

Marist RV 55% (8/3-6/09)

CNN/ORC 56% (7/31 - 8/3/09)

Ipsos/McClatchy * 58% (7/30 - 8/3/09)

Quinnipiac U. RV 50% (7/27 - 8/3/09)

Time 56% (7/27-28/09)

CBS/New York Times 58% (7/24-28/09)

Which gives us an average of 54.6%. As Nate at 538 put it:

"Big change is costly, and not just in actual dollars from the Treasury, but in terms of how much of his capital reserves a president is willing to spend to get what he wants. Obama is not plugging for school uniforms, folks. He's re-regulating Wall Street, trying to stimulate the economy by pumping nearly $1 trillion into it, and attempting to tackle the policy problem too many of his predecessors never could: reforming our messy, complicated health care system. Accordingly, he's paying the price for even trying."

Hey "Johann," here is a question for ya. Can you give me the name of a prominent republican leader that has higher national job approval numbers?

Sarah Palin has a favorability rating of 37%. Obama's is 60%. Wanna trade? I don't.

Rachael Madow was talking about Obama's seemingly low numbers on health care reform specifically this evening. I think he was at 41% for his efforts. This would seem pretty bad until you consider that the republican leadership, on the same category, had an approval of... 21%.

Here's a question for ya Johann, sweetie. Which number is bigger, 21, or 41?

And how are your boys in the congress doing with their obstruction strategy? Let's see how that's working out for them shall we?

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling their job?"

Approve: 29%
Disapprove: 59% (7/27 - 8/3/09) --ibid

Just 6% of voters now expect a tax cut during the Obama years.

DAR
We know a large percentage of the populace is clueless (completely), so I am less interested in what some dim bulbs expect, than in what is real. Being a student of reality, unlike you, I am interested in the fact that the tiny six percent are actually right, and the rest, like you, are wrong. Note:

"A recent Rasmussen poll found that just 15 percent of likely voters believed that "President Obama cut taxes for 95% of Americans". Technially, they're wrong -- Obama has not cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. But he has done so for in excess of 98 pecent of "working" tax households." All carefully delineated in great detail here.

GALT
...the Country Financial Security Index slipped to a record low last month.

DAR
ABC News has a "CONSUMER COMFORT INDEX." It's at -47 right now. This is understandably low since we are still reeling from Bush's Great Depression 2.0 (and will be for some time), but if you look at the record of this weekly measurement you may notice that it has been lower than -47, thirty six times in the last year. That means, dear Galt, most of the time.

Will you ever be able to come up with something that can't easily be smacked down Galt? I hope so. Do keep trying.

Galt? Oh, he ran away again.

D.

x

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A deeper look at the birthers

After we conducted polls over the last couple of weeks finding significant numbers of 'birthers' in North Carolina and Virginia, we decided to take the question national but also drum down more specifically on where exactly the people who think Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States do think he's from.

The answer is that 62% of Americans think Obama was born here, while 24% think he was not and 14% are unsure.

10% of the country thinks that he was born in Indonesia, 7% think he was born in Kenya, and 1% think he was born in the Philippines.

That leaves 20%, which includes at least some people who correctly believe that Obama was born in Hawaii, but who don't consider Hawaii to be part of the United States. You read that right- 6% of poll respondents think that Hawaii is not part of the country and 4% are unsure.

It's hard to say what the rest of that 20% thinks. We did ask them if they thought Obama was born in France and while less than half a percent of respondents did, two thirds of that remaining 20% said they 'weren't sure' whether Obama was a Frenchman.

So who are the birthers?

-62% are Republicans, 20% are Democrats, and 18% are independents
-57% are conservatives, 33% are moderates, and 9% are liberals
-56% are men, 44% are women
-86% are white, 7% are Hispanic, 4% are black, and 3% are other races

Fascinating stuff. Public Policy Polling

.

Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, but just to show Galt how things go:

President Obama's numbers are back on the rise in Ohio after falling rapidly in recent months, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

In July, the president's approval in the hard-hit state was measured at 49 percent, down 13 points down from May. In Quinnipiac's latest survey, Obama is back up to 53 percent.

The poll also found a general uptick for Democrats in Ohio over the summer, evidencing itself in higher approval ratings and slightly stronger showings for the party's candidates for the U.S. Senate.

"Perhaps it's because the poll was taken immediately after the President's nationally-televised prime-time speech to Congress, but Democratic fortunes in Ohio have improved slightly across-the-board," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

In July, Obama's poll drop in Ohio was followed by a national downward trend in his numbers. Now, his national numbers are also creeping back up. here