His numbers are weak across the board in Gallup’s latest, but shockingly weak among “pure independents.”
Obama’s approval rating has decreased among all six partisan/ideology groups Gallup tracks on a regular basis since January, but it has dropped the most — 10 percentage points, from 40% to 30% — among pure independents. These are the roughly 14% of national adults who neither identify with one of the two major parties nor indicate a leaning. Obama’s approval rating has declined by nearly as much — eight points — among moderate/liberal Republicans, from 29% to 21%.
Obama’s approval rating has changed the least in 2011 among the two groups on the far left and right of the U.S. political spectrum. Most liberal Democrats and very few conservative Republicans approved of him in January and this remains the case today. Additionally, conservative Democrats’ views also showed little change — likely because their approval was already at a dampened 70% at the start of the year.
Obama’s response seems to be, “Yeah I stink now, but re-elect me and I’ll stink less.”
Update: Jimmy Carter has long been the gold standard for crappy presidents. But Obama is set to eclipse him.
President Obama’s slow ride down Gallup’s daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history.
Since March, Obama’s job approval rating has hovered above Carter’s, considered among the 20th century’s worst presidents, but today Obama’s punctured Carter’s dismal job approval line. On their comparison chart, Gallup put Obama’s job approval rating at 43 percent compared to Carter’s 51 percent.
This is reviving talk of swapping Joe Biden out for Hillary Clinton on the Dem ticket. They would get a temporary bump out of that, but would still have the problem that Obama remains on the top of the ticket.
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