[ Posted Monday, March 5th, 2012 – 15:44 UTC ]
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. This is the longest run of improved public job approval Obama has managed since he got elected. Obama posted a gain of almost two full percentage points in his approval rate in February, the third-best month he's ever had in this respect (and one of the two months he posted bigger gains in was the bounce he got from Osama Bin Laden's death). He wound up the month with his approval rating a full percent better than his disapproval rating, the best numbers he's seen since last June. But this trend could be flattening out, as he ended the month of February by slipping back a bit. So in the midst of plenty of good news on the polling front for Obama, there is reason for caution as well. Call it the dark lining to a very silver cloud, if you will.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 – 15:34 UTC ]
President Barack Obama continued a three-month upward swing in the polls in January, with his average job approval rating for the month ticking up 1.2 points, and his disapproval rate falling by exactly the same amount.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 – 16:07 UTC ]
President Obama had a pretty good month last month in the job approval polls, bettering his standing in both approval and disapproval by roughly three-fourths of percentage point. This may not sound like that big a deal, but it was the second straight month of solid gains for the president in both categories.
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[ Posted Monday, December 5th, 2011 – 15:34 UTC ]
This month Obama poll watchers got some good news, and some bad news. This was capped off, at the end of the month, by the Washington punditocracy making an incredibly stupid comparison between polling for Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter -- which we will address at the end of the column (complete with a "guess the president" graph quiz, for your amusement).
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[ Posted Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 – 15:06 UTC ]
Barack Obama's job approval poll numbers in October were flat. Very flat. So flat, in fact, that he tied his own "flattest month ever" record, which he initially set back in November of last year. Obama's change in approval and disapproval combined last month totaled only a single tenth of a percent -- which is almost as flat as numerically possible.
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[ Posted Thursday, October 6th, 2011 – 15:49 UTC ]
Barack Obama's poll numbers in September were not good. In fact, they were pretty bad. Obama fans looking for good news will have to be content with the fact that at least Obama seems to be slowing the trend of his dropping numbers somewhat. This isn't exactly a turnaround for him, but September was a lot less of a drastic change than the three months which preceded it.
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[ Posted Monday, September 5th, 2011 – 16:19 UTC ]
For President Obama, August is indeed the cruelest month.
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 – 17:17 UTC ]
The easy answer to the question: "Who 'won' the debt ceiling debate?" is: nobody. The public sees everyone involved in a more negative light than when the whole manufactured crisis began. Hopefully, politicians will take note of this, but it is quite likely they will not, and this new standard of brinksmanship will become the norm, every time the debt ceiling debate arises. There's a comforting thought, after the past month, eh?
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 – 13:21 UTC ]
As many were predicting, President Obama's bounce in approval polls due to the death of Osama Bin Laden did not last very long. While Obama started the month still strongly riding the wave of public approval from the Bin Laden raid, this had mostly dissipated by the second week in June, and Obama's poll numbers flattened out after that. The plateau he hit at this point is slightly higher than he had before the "OBL bump," but that's about the only consolation for Obama fans in the June numbers.
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[ Posted Thursday, May 26th, 2011 – 23:04 UTC ]
This month was the best month President Barack Obama has ever had in the polls, when measured as change over the previous month. If you count it one way (measured by absolute values) Obama's best month was technically the second month into his term -- when he was still enjoying his "honeymoon" period, and had 63.4 percent support from the public. But in terms of actually changing public opinion, May was indeed the best month Obama's had, by far.
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