From the latest McCLatchy-Marist poll, 53% of registered voters approve of the job he is doing as president, while 40% disapprove. This is a complete reversal from a year ago, when 40% approved and 52% disapproved, and is the highest net positive in seven years. This is also the third-highest approval rating he’s received during his entire presidency, and just 3% below his all-time-high of 56%.
Digging a little deeper into the numbers, his support is strongest in the Northeast (62% to 29%) followed by the West (59% to 37%). He is even +8 in the South— 50% to 42%— and trails by just 4% in the Midwest (44% to 48%).
President Obama’s highest net approval (aside from democrats) is a whopping +51 (68% to 17%) among adults aged 18 to 29, and he’s net positive in the remaining age groups as well, except tied among adults 60 and older.
And naturally, this is also terrific news for Hillary.
The fate of the incumbent party’s candidate is strongly influenced by the popularity of the outgoing president. In fact, the incumbent president’s approval rating explains over half of the variance in the vote share of his party’s nominee. All three candidates seeking to succeed presidents with approval ratings below 50% were defeated, and the two seeking to succeed presidents with approval ratings below 40% were decisively defeated. In contrast, two of the three candidates seeking to succeed presidents with approval ratings above 50% won the popular vote, although one of those candidates, Al Gore in 2000, ended up losing the electoral vote.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball