President Barack Obama averaged 43.2% job approval during his 22nd quarter in office, from April 20 through July 19. That is a minimal increase from the prior quarter’s 42.4% average, but still ranks among the lowest for Obama to date. His worst quarterly average thus far is 41.0% in quarter […] Read more »
Goodbye to the Republican Wave?
Republicans entered this election cycle with high hopes. President Obama’s approval ratings had sunk into the low 40s, and the rollout of the Affordable Care Act had been an unmitigated disaster. … This year seemed poised to turn into another so-called wave election, like in 2006 or 2010, when a […] Read more »
Warren and Paul on the Pulse of 2016
Back in 2006, Democrats were happy to have Hillary Clinton on the trail with them, but freshman Senator Barack Obama was the real hot ticket as a Democratic surrogate. … The top surrogate for Republicans that year wasn’t Pres. George W. Bush, whose approval ratings were deep underwater, but Sen. […] Read more »
Immigration Isn’t A Slam-Dunk Issue for Democrats Anymore
… The conventional wisdom has long held that immigration is the equivalent of Kryptonite for Republicans: If they don’t pass comprehensive reform, their party is writing its own extinction. Indeed, GOP officials have been publicly telegraphing their own vulnerabilities on the subject for years, highlighted by a 2013 RNC-commissioned report […] Read more »
‘Takers’ just as likely to vote Republican as ‘makers,’ data show
… Now comes a new paper from Dean Lacy of Dartmouth College, which aims to answer the question of whether the “takers” do indeed vote Democratic no matter what. The short answer is a qualified ‘no’: “benefiting from government spending has no effect on the probability of voting for Obama […] Read more »
Surge of Central American Children Roils Immigration Debate
As the president and Congress struggle over how to deal with the influx of thousands of unaccompanied minors from Central America across the U.S.-Mexican border, a new survey finds that the public favors a shift in U.S. policy to expedite the legal processing of the children. President Obama gets very […] Read more »