Obama Approval Above 50% In States With 445 Electoral Votes
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2012 Election, Barack, Obama, Polls
It’s still early yet in Obama presidency, but given that he’s above 50% in many states that didn’t vote go for him this fall…there’s some significance here.
Obama’s approval equals or exceeds 50 percent in all of the states that he won on November 4th, plus Arizona (10 electoral votes), Arkansas (6), Georgia (15), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Missouri (11), South Dakota (3) and Tennessee (11). [...]There are a couple of places, though, where there is a little bit of a suggestion that Obama is overperforming or underperforming. His approval ratings are somewhat slack in the Southwest relative to his election day totals, although it is hard to reach a definitive conclusion since we only have one poll to look at in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Conversely, there are some signs that Obama is overperforming in the Inner South or what we sometimes call the “Highlands” region — states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas. These are places where Obama appeared to suffer somewhat owing to racial animus. I have theorized before that Obama might gain ground in these states as the manifest familiarity of his Presidency displaced the fear of his otherness. It is too early to confirm or refute that hypothesis, but we perhaps shouldn’t completely rule out the possibility that Obama could be competitive in some of these states in 2012.
I still think that 2012 will hinge on the economy. If it gets better, Obama is a lock. If not, the GOP has an opening. But let’s remember that Bush was still reelected in 2004, even with the Iraq War becoming increasingly unpopular.
Also, when you look at the stable of candidates the GOP will field, only Romney seems like a viable choice. Palin is a joke and Huckabee is too religious. And a guy like Pawlenty, while interesting, doesn’t have the charisma or backing.
But what about a guy like Charlie Crist?
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 and is filed under 2012 Election, Barack, Obama, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Any data on how this compares to favorability at this point in the presidency for Clinton and Bush part Deux?
And as for 2012, the economy will be big. But we’re also seeing a rapidly destabilizing North Korea and Iran, and what could be a “quagmire” in Afghanistan. If we have four more years of dying American soldiers with no end in sight and no real sense of why we’re there or what we’re trying to accomplish, Obama will be accused of being “just another Bush.”
June 15th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Geez, not another massaged “meta-data” interpretation of multiple polls…some of them Kos polls. I applaud Nate Silver’s efforts here but he’s gotta know this is mostly a WAG.
Obama’s approval rating has been steady around 60% since mid-March, after a mild decline from peak until then. Amusingly, his approval rating was highest right after the election, two months before he came into office. Call it the pre-honeymoon bounce. That’s consistent with previous presidents.
Bush’s approval ratings for the same period in 2001 were clustered around 56-58% with occasional spikes over 60%, despite the spitfest dramatics of the Goracle’s Last Stand. His favorability ratings for the same period were a bit higher (yes, they are different things) at about 64-66%. Don’t have Obama’s favorability ratings handy but I’d guess they follow the same general pattern seen with most new presidents of being several points higher than the approval ratings.
What would be more interesting (to me, anyway) would be the “spread” between the approve/disapprove for both at the same periods. Obama’s “spread” has been shrinking. IIRC, Bush’s did too as Dems and centrists reacted to the “Commander in Thief” rhetoric following the close call.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Anyone who believes that Obama will not be re-elected is a fool. The only quesiton is whether President Obama will win in all fifty states in 2012. If the Republicans nominate Romney, they will probably only win Utah. If they nominate Palin they will be lucky to win Alaska. If they nominate Huckabee, Obama become the first candidate to win all 50 states.
The Republicans should not spend one dollar of private money trying to beat President Obama in 2012. They should try to have to most articulate candidate so they will not be embarrassed during the debates and then the Republicans should concentrate on trying to win at the local and state level.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Presidential approval/favorabilty ratings, Jimmy Carter, June 1977:
Approve: 64%. Favorable: 82%.
Just so one can guage how relevant today’s ratings are to, say, three-plus years from now.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Tully, those numbers suggest that popularity and long-term efficacy are two different things.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Yep. They also suggest that early-term popularity is not a predictor of either performance or re-electability.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
They also suggest, in general that the numbers ar affected least by what you say, the next least by what you do, and the most by how people fare.
In other words, by the next election, the relevant questions will be “how bad is it” and how much of the blame does Obama deserve for that? And that’s a mileage issue, folks. My sense is that if things are mediocre to stagnant but improved over today, he’ll get reelected.
If they are as bad or worse than now, he probably won’t.