The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 36% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Twenty-nine percent (29%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +7 (see trends).
After two weeks of volatility, these figures put the President’s ratings back in the range they’ve occupied for the past three months. With just a handful of exceptions, the number who Strongly Approve of the President’s performance has been between 34% and 38% every day since early March. That’s a very narrow range moving just two points above or below today’s level.
On the negative side, the number who Strongly Disapprove has generally stayed between 27% and 32%. However, that figure has bounced around quite a bit over the past two weeks. Following the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the number who Strongly Disapproved fell to 26% for a day. That was the lowest level of such disapproval since March 4. A week later, following the GM bailout, the number who Strongly Disapproved moved to the highest level yet recorded at 34%.
Those swings now appear to have been temporary reactions to events in the news. Initial reaction to the Sotomayor nomination was generally positive while reaction to the GM bailout and takeover was very negative. New data on the GM bailout will be released at noon Eastern today.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates also available on Twitter.
Overall, 56% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance so far. Forty-three percent (43%) disapprove. For more Presidential barometers, see Obama By the Numbers and recent demographic highlights.
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Americans overwhelmingly believe that judges of different backgrounds—men, women, white, Hispanic—would reach the same decisions if they carefully studied the facts and tried to apply the law as written. Eighty-three percent (83%) say our legal system should apply the law equally to all Americans rather than using the law to help those who have less power and influence.
When comparing data from different firms, it’s important to keep in mind that polls of likely voters and polls of all adults will typically and consistently yield different results. In the case of President Obama, polls by all firms measuring all adults typically show significantly higher approval ratings than polls of likely voters. Polls of registered voters typically fall in the middle. Other factors are also important to consider when comparing Job Approval ratings from different polling firms.
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A Fordham University professor has rated the national pollsters on their record in Election 2008. We also have provided a summary of our results for your review.
Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling error—for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters--is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results are available for Premium Members.
Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large (see methodology). Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. While partisan affiliation is generally quite stable over time, there are a fair number of people who waver between allegiance to a particular party or independent status. Over the past four years, the number of Democrats in the country has increased while the number of Republicans has decreased.
Our baseline targets are established based upon separate survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews) and targets are updated monthly. Currently, the baseline targets for the adult population are 40.1% Democrats, 33.1% Republicans, and 26.7% unaffiliated. Likely voter samples typically show a slightly smaller advantage for the Democrats.
A review of last week’s key polls is posted each Saturday morning. Other stats on Obama are updated daily on the Rasmussen Reports Obama By the Numbers page. We also invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls.
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