President Hits 6-month Job Approval High on Gallup and RCP

Photo courtesy of The Guardian.

Today's Gallup tracking update fits nicely with the new Democratic narrative that, just maybe, despite years-long conventional wisdom, Obamacare and its creator aren't as doomed as originally thought. For the first time since their October 8, 2013 update, President Obama's job approval rating came within two points of matching his disapproval rating on Gallup.

In the intervening period since October, the President's net approval (the difference between his approval and disapproval rating) has ranged from -4 (on April 19-20 and March 19-20), and -16 (on March 1-2 and March 15, 2014). Furthermore, today marks only the second time since October 8 that Obama's approval rating has reached as high as 46% (the other time being on February 20). Today also marks the first time since October 8 the President's job DISAPPROVAL rating dropped below the 49% level.

You have to go all the way back to September 26th to find the President's net job approval higher than it is now. And unfortunately for Republicans, the Gallup daily tracker isn't the only pollster showing Obama's job ratings improving from months ago. Check out his RCP and Pollster averages. Obama's at his best net average job rating since October 29 per the former, and since September 24 per the latter.

There are two obvious theories behind the ratings change: 1) the outrage over the Obamacare website's failures and canceled insurance policies, which began in early October, roughly around the same time as Obama's approval rating drop, is subsiding. Though the evidence for this seems split at best. 2) The Gallup tracker has a history of bouncing around on a day-to-day basis, which is most likely all we're seeing in today's numbers. Afterall, the President was at 42/52% on April 16, just six days ago. And over the course of two days earlier this month, the President's job rating fell from 45/49% to 40/55%, a net drop of eleven points. On the other hand, Obama's WEEKLY average job approval (which is a better metric for spotting trends), is the lowest its been in two months, even before factoring in today's lofty 46/48% figure. You have to go back to the week of September 29 to find a higher average weekly net job approval for the President.

In the end, remember, we're talking about Gallup's daily tracker. It can be erratic, sometimes wildly so. But today's numbers, taken in the context of most recent national surveys, bode well for Democrats.

How Concerned Should Hillaryland Be About Barack Obama's Political Standing In 2016?

Though Clinton's soaring approval ratings seemingly did little to help Gore in 2000, and McCain's popular vote percentage far exceeded the number who approved of the job Dubya was doing, the elder Bush's electoral performance in 1988 closely mirrored public approval of his boss, Ronald Reagan. Photo taken July 1988, courtesy of the Reagan Library.

President Barack Obama's job approval rating currently sits at about 45/50% per the Real Clear Politics aggregator, 44/50% according to Huffington Posts's Pollster, or 46/49% per TPM Polltracker.

All in all, these are some pretty rough numbers for the President, especially considering where he stood for most of the 2012 election year, and represents one of his worst periods in terms of job approval since the Fall of  2010 and 2011.

Fortunately for Obama, he'll never have to stand before voters for re-election again. Unfortunately for Democrats, they'll endure the burden of running for office with the anchor of an unpopular Presidency around their neck, assuming Obama's ratings hold at current levels or get worse.

In fact, recent history would suggest that 2014 Senate and House contenders should fear the President's popularity the most. In 2010, Obama sported an abysmal 44/55% job approval rating, and Republicans won in a landslide. Something similar happened in 2006, when George W. Bush had a 43/57% approval rating, and the Democrats won in a landslide. In 2002, a hugely popular post-9/11 George Bush was able to flout tradition when his party won an impressive popular vote victory and picked up several seats.

But what if we look further down the road? Can the way voters feel about President Obama on election night 2016 affect the vote count for Hillary Clinton? Or Joe Biden? Or Howard Dean? Or any number of possible 2016 Democratic nominees? Intuition and common-sense suggests yes, and at least one poll-analyst seems to agree. But historical evidence provides room for doubt.

The series of tables below detail outgoing Presidential job approval ratings in the final month(s) of the presidential campaigns to replace them. And as you can see, especially with regards to the 2008, 2000, and 1960 presidential elections, the term-limited President's ratings didn't appear to make or break his party's nominee: