Friday, April 24, 2009

New poll shows Obama is no more popular than President Bush was at same point

A FOX News poll shows Obama is has same popularity as Bush in first term, but Obama's numbers show a more partisan divide.
FOX News reported:

The president's approval is nearly identical to the job rating George W. Bush received at the same point in his first term, as 63 percent of Americans approved and 22 percent disapproved (April 18-19, 2001). One noticeable difference is that approval of Obama is much more divided along partisan lines today than Bush's ratings were eight years ago.

A Gallop poll shows the same result, but they tried to hide the numbers. From History News Network,
Gallup reports that 56% of the public believes that Obama is doing an excellent/good job. Gallup reported 62% approved of George W. Bush's job performance after the first 100 days. MSM tells us how popular Barack Obama is but the numbers tell a different story especially when used comparatively. Comparing the Gallup poll taken following the first 100 day of George W. Bush and Barack Obama is rather informative especially given the highly contentious nature of the 2000 election.

Here are the numbers for other presidents:

April approval ratings in first year in office

Bush now 62%
Clinton, 1993 55
Bush, 1989 58
Reagan, 1981 67
Carter, 1977 63
Nixon, 1969 61
Sampling error: +/-3% pts

Now justify these headlines:

Gallup: First-100-Days-Obama-Meets-Exceeds-Expectations. By the way, the wording of the question is most suspect as many (including me) expected him to do just as poorly as he is doing. But Gallup is going even further. It uses his daily tracking poll to cover up the results of the 100 day poll.

USAToday:Poll: Public thinks highly of Obama

Chicago Tribune: Obama riding high in polls

3 comments:

Steel Phoenix said...

Any bets on who will have a higher approval at the end of 8? I'll take O. Bush2 was the worst in history; that is going to be hard to beat.

Don't forget, Democrats award points just for trying. Everyone is a winner.

Bluegrass Pundit said...

Steel Phoenix said...

"Any bets on who will have a higher approval at the end of 8? I'll take O. Bush2 was the worst in history; that is going to be hard to beat.

Don't forget, Democrats award points just for trying. Everyone is a winner."

Bush was the worst in history? There are several things I did not like about President Bush, but he was not the worst president in history from my point of view. He kept us safe after 9-11, gave my mother prescription drug benefits, gave me tax cuts and I got a raise every year he was President. There were no lay offs at my workplace under President Bush. Since Obama was elected, I have had to take a pay cut and lay off several of my employees. My 401k has melted. I have had my taxes increases (cigarettes.) The federal deficit and spending has skyrocketed to unimaginable levels and I feel less safe due to O's weakness when dealing with Dictators and rogue countries. And all that is in 100 days. I think Obama will be rated far worse than Bush. Most likely, Al Qaeda will attack again during his term. The economy will meander for a couple of years and historians and economist will rate him poorly for selling out our future with unbridled spending. His negative numbers will climb as more people understand his socialistic world view and left wing ideology.

Steel Phoenix said...

"Bush was the worst in history? There are several things I did not like about President Bush, but he was not the worst president in history from my point of view."Your post and my comment were about approval rating, not performance.

Interesting predictions. We will see. The economy is about to get really bumpy again, but in a different way.