With the start of summer, I thought this would be a good time to take stock of where the current presidential race stands by comparing Obama’s approval/disapproval ratings five months out from the election to the ratings of previous presidents at the same point in their re-election campaigns. I was particularly interested in seeing how the two presidents who failed to be re-elected since 1980 fared against Obama.
Jimmy Carter
In the Gallup poll dated June 13-16, 1980, President Carter had a 32% approval rating and a 56% disapproval rating.
http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/...
George H.W. Bush
In the Gallup poll conducted from June 12-14, 1992, President Bush had a 37% approval rating and a 55% disapproval rating.
http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/...(G.H.W.)
Barack Obama
In comparison, President Obama currently stands in the Gallup poll at 46% approval and 48% disapproval. Not great, but much better than his two losing predecessors.
http://www.gallup.com/...
So what about the presidents who won re-election in that time?
George W. Bush
In the Gallup poll from June 21-23, 2004, George W. Bush had a 48% approval rating and a 49% disapproval rating, slightly better than Obama’s but within the margin of error.
http://www.gallup.com/...
Bill Clinton
In the Gallup poll from June 18-19, 1996, Clinton was riding high with a 58% approval rating versus a 37% disapproval rating. No wonder he went on to win re-election in an electoral landslide.
http://www.gallup.com/...
Ronald Reagan
In the Gallup poll from June 22-25, 1984, Reagan had a 54% approval rating and a 36% disapproval rating, leading to an electoral wipeout in the fall of epic proportions.
http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/...
So what can we glean from all this information? Well, Obama is certainly doing better than his recent predecessors who did not win re-election and he is in a virtual tie with one who did. It also implies that we cannot expect any kind of electoral landslide comparable to either Reagan’s or Clinton’s if he is to be re-elected.
One additional caveat: last week, Nate Silver published an article looking at the “house effect” in certain polls (a house-effect is when a poll tends to lean towards one political party over another). He discovered that Gallup has been the most Republican-leaning of all the major polls in this electoral cycle, with an average of a 2.5% Republican favorability compared to the others (yes, even more than Rasmussen). Take that for what it’s worth, but it may be something worth considering.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/...