Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos and SEIU (5/5-8, MoE: ±3.1, registered voters, Obama trendlines 4/28-5/1, all others 4/21-24):
As expected, Barack Obama's numbers soared over the last week. Obama's jump looks even more dramatic when set against the last couple of months of polls, which had been decidedly weak for him. Here are the president's job approval and disapproval ratings from March onward:
It's rare that you can point to a single event which unequivocally leads to an instant rise in the polls, but bringing Osama bin Laden to justice surely fits into that small group. (I also find it interesting that a spike for the Democratic Party was matched by an equal dive for the GOP.) In case there were any doubt, Obama's overnight jump is
confirmed by other pollsters (note that I've filtered out Zogby's laughable Internet polls):
The question on poll watchers' minds, of course, is whether this bounce will prove enduring or ephemeral. Count me in the latter group, but fortunately, we don't have to guess: We'll be back with a new poll each and every week for the entire 2011-12 election cycle, so stay tuned.