Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos (MoE: ±3.1, 2/24-27, registered voters, Obama trendlines 2/17-20, all others 2/11-13):
|
FAVORABLE |
UNFAVORABLE |
NET CHANGE |
PRESIDENT OBAMA |
49 (49) |
44 (46) |
+2 |
DEMOCRATIC PARTY |
46 (42) |
45 (48) |
+7 |
REPUBLICAN PARTY |
34 (36) |
52 (50) |
-4 |
|
APPROVE |
DISAPPROVE |
NET CHANGE |
PRESIDENT OBAMA |
48 (46) |
45 (49) |
+6 |
|
OBAMA |
REPUBLICAN |
NET CHANGE |
OBAMA RE-ELECT |
49 (47) |
44 (45) |
+3 |
Generally speaking, our State of the Nation poll doesn't show huge jumps from survey to survey, and this week is no exception. There's a nice bump for the Democratic Party's favorables, which now move back into positive territory, and for President Obama's job approval, which does the same. Of course, our sample fluctuates slightly with each poll—if it didn't, that'd be suspect—and sometimes that's the cause of these kinds of changes. For instance, 41% of respondents say they are Democrats this week, whereas only 37% did so a week ago. But the biggest shift for Obama's job approval is actually among independents, where he's now +1 (48-47) instead of -8 (43-51).
As for the Dems themselves, we last tested them two weeks ago, and then, our sample was very close to the current one (39D-35R-27I vs. 41D-35R-24I). In this case, conversely, the Democratic jump can be explained by improvements among Ds (+9) and Rs (+6), whereas the party actually sank among independents (-8). Needless to say, though, one shouldn't read a lot into small changes like this, particularly in the absence of major opinion-shifting news. Long-term trends are almost always going to be more significant.