Pollster.com’s Charles Franklin was a little ahead of the curve Sunday morning when he pointed out that President Obama’s approval rating right now is among the highest Election-Day approval ratings in recent history. … Why is that ahead of the curve? Because on Monday, fewer than 24 hours before polls […] Read more »
Obama Averages 52.0% Job Approval in 31st Quarter
During his 31st quarter in office, President Barack Obama averaged 52.0% job approval, up one percentage point from the 30th quarter and the highest in his second term as president. … Of the six presidents who served 31 quarters in office, Obama is the fourth to have majority approval at […] Read more »
Popular Presidents Factor Little in Non-Incumbent Elections
The Ronald Reagan presidency offers the most recent historical clues as to whether President Barack Obama’s popularity could affect voters’ choices for president in November. Like Obama, Reagan was earning job approval ratings in the low to mid-50s in the second half of his eighth year. And the Republican nominee […] Read more »
Republicans Need to Get Ready for the Trump Aftershock
This week’s cascade of Republican defections from Donald Trump has plunged the GOP into the deepest general-election divide over its presidential nominee in more than 50 years. The apex of modern GOP general-election conflict came in 1964 when Barry Goldwater, as the tribune of an emerging Sunbelt- and suburbia-based conservative […] Read more »
Can a rising Obama help Hillary Clinton?
President Barack Obama’s approval rating got its own convention bump, and now stands at its highest level since just before his second inauguration in 2013. Obama’s approval rating dipped to 50% after the Republican convention, but has risen to 54% in the wake of his party’s convention, with 45% disapproval, […] Read more »
Pessimism Might Not Be a Winning Bet for Republicans
A political lifetime ago, Ronald Reagan’s pollster seized on this question to frame the campaign’s argument during his 1980 presidential campaign: “Is the country headed in the right direction, or is it on the wrong track?” … In the New York Times-CBS News poll for July, 26 percent of respondents […] Read more »