An annotated chart about why Presidential approval ratings matter.

Strictly speaking, I am not criticizing the Fix for not drawing a more explicit link between Presidential approval ratings and Senate churn in a midterm election. They established the basic point, which was that both parties are increasingly taking seriously that the President’s current low numbers will translate into Democratic losses in the Senate. The Monkey Cage spells it out:

Presidential approval is strongly correlated with midterm congressional election outcomes. Gallup has polled Americans on presidential approval during every midterm election cycle since 1954. Across the 16 midterm election cycles from 1954 through 2012 the average level of presidential approval during the first quarter (January to March) of the election year is about 58 percent. Over the available Gallup presidential approval polls for the first quarter of this year, Obama’s approval is significantly below the average, about 42 percent, worse than every other year except 2006 and 1974.

Or, you can see it as a spreadsheet. ‘Year’ is midterm election year, ‘App’ lumps in the average 1st quarter Gallup approval rating for the sitting President into one of three categories (above 75%, 50% to 74%, 25% to 49%), and ‘G/L ‘ is the number of seats that the President’s party gained or lost in the Senate that year. It’s grim reading for Democrats, this cycle.

Year	App	G/L
1954	50%+	-2
1958	50%+	-13
1962	75%+	+3
1966	50%+	-3
1970	50%+	+2
1974	25%+	-4
1978	25%+	-3
1982	25%+	+0
1986	50%+	-8
1990	50%+	-1
1994	50%+	-8
1998	50%+	+0
2002	75%+	+2
2006	25%+	-6
2010	25%+	-6
2014	25%+

As you can see, there’s no magic equation for this situation, but generally it’s clear enough that while high Presidential popularity may not gain his party seats, low Presidential popularity is a great way for his party to lose them. In fact, merely holding the Presidency at all is a great way for his party to lose seats. Again, this is not a magic bullet. But if you look at that chart… there’s absolutely nothing stopping the Democrats from losing six or more seats this year. In fact, it’s not even unprecedented for the Democrats to lose Senate seats in the double-digits this year: it happened to Eisenhower in 1958, and the country liked him.

So what caused that one to happen? Oh, just an economic recession.

Via: Red State
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Majority want health law repealed or scaled back

A majority of people in the United States say they want ObamaCare to be scaled back or repealed altogether. 

According to a Gallup poll released Friday, 20 percent support a scale-back of the law, while 32 percent back efforts to repeal it.

That's just a little more than in mid-October, when 50 percent told Gallup the law should be scaled-back or repealed.

 The relatively small change could be viewed as good news at the White House given the difficult last six weeks for the law. A faulty website rolled out on Oct. 1 made enrolling in the exchanges problematic, but the administration argues the website is not functioning well for 90 percent of visitors.

More than half of Americans have believed the law should be repealed or scaled back since January 2011. 

Only 17 percent in Gallup’s latest survey say ObamaCare should remain the same. That’s a seven-percentage-point drop since the 24 percent who felt that way in October.

Ninety percent of Republicans want the law repealed or changed, the poll says. Democrats, on the other hand, want the law expanded. Half of independent voters surveyed say they want the law repealed or scaled back while 37 percent want it expanded.

A Gallup poll from earlier this week indicated a quarter of people who lack health insurance say they’re willing to pay a fine rather than enrolling in ObamaCare. Sixty-three percent of uninsured people say they intend to enroll in the health exchange.

Via: The Hill

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Gallup: Obamacare’s Hurt/Had No Effect: 10; Helped:1

(CNSNews.com) - The percentage of Americans who say that Obamacare has either hurt them and their family or has had no effect yet outnumbers those who say it has helped by a margin of approximately 10 to 1, according to a new poll released by Gallup.

On Nov. 23-24, Gallup asked 1,034 adults this question: “As you may know, a few of the provisions of the healthcare law have already gone into effect. So far, has the new law helped you and your family, not had an effect, or has it hurt you and your family?

Only 9 percent said that Obamacare had helped them and their family. Meanwhile, 19 percent said it had hurt them and their family and 69 percent said that it had had no effect on them and their family.

The combined 88 percent who said it either hurt them and their family or had no effect on them and their family represented 9.7 times as many people as the 9 percent who said it had helped them and their family.

Via: CNS News

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Majority in U.S. Say Healthcare Not Gov't Responsibility

Republicans' attitudes on this measure have changed significantly since 2000

by Joy Wilke

PRINCETON, NJ -- The 56% of U.S. adults who now say it is not the federal government's responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage continues to reflect a record high. Prior to 2009, a clear majority of Americans consistently had said the government should take responsibility for ensuring that all Americans have healthcare.

The most recent data were collected in Gallup's annual Health and Healthcare poll, conducted Nov. 7-10. The percentage of U.S. adults who said it is the federal government's responsibility to ensure all Americans have healthcare coverage peaked at 69% in 2006. Attitudes began to shift significantly in 2007, and continued to change through the time President Barack Obama took office in 2009. Americans who feel healthcare coverage is not the federal government's responsibility have been in the clear majority the past two years.

Most Republicans Now View Ensuring Healthcare Coverage as Outside Government Purview

Attitudes across all three partisan groups have shifted away from the view that ensuring healthcare coverage is a proper role of government, but most significantly among Republicans and independents. In September 2000, 53% of Republicans believed the government should not be responsible for ensuring all Americans had health coverage; today, 86% feel that way, an increase of 33 percentage points in 13 years. Over the same period, the percentage of Republicans believing the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all has fallen from 42% to 12%.

Fifty-five percent of independents currently say the government should not be involved with healthcare -- an increase of 28 points since 2000.

The percentage of Democrats who hold this view is now 30%, its highest level since Gallup first asked the question and an 11-point increase since 2000 -- with the largest change in opinion occurring between 2006 and 2008.

Via: Gallup

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OBAMA APPROVAL LOWER THAN BUSH'S AT SAME TIME IN PRESIDENCY

Politically, Barack Obama is in worse shape at this time in his presidency than George W. Bush was at the exact same time in his. The first week of November in the fifth year of his presidency, Gallup showed Bush with a 40% job approval rating, with 55% disapproving. The first week of November in the fifth year of his presidency, Gallup has Obama at 39% approve, 53% disapprove.

The glib response from the media and left to this kind of news is that Obama is not going to face another re-election. But that is all happy talk. If a president wants to pursue a second-term agenda, job approval numbers mean everything. Another worry for Democrats should be that Obama's basement in approval does begin with the number three.

The circumstance both presidents faced and face are completely different, as well.

Five years ago, Bush was fighting an unpopular war in Iraq that hadn't yet turned around with the surge. Obama is dealing with an unpopular law, a debacle of a website, and a credibility implosion due to repeatedly lying to the American people about being able to keep their health insurance.

The surge eventually worked in Iraq, and until Hurricane Katrina, Bush was able to rebound a little.

Even if Obama's "tech surge" on the ObamaCare website works, there is no surge that will ever save any president caught on tape relentlessly lying to the American people, and then lying about his lying.  

Via: Breitbart

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Uninsured Americans Still Unfamiliar With Health Exchanges

Seven in 10 not familiar with exchanges, unchanged since September

PRINCETON, NJ -- Although federal and state health insurance exchanges opened on Oct. 1, 71% of Americans who lack health insurance -- the primary target group for the exchanges -- say they are "not too familiar" or "not familiar at all" with them, little changed from last month. At the same time, 28% of uninsured Americans say they are very or somewhat familiar with the exchanges, up slightly from 25% last month.

The exchanges are online insurance marketplaces that allow eligible Americans to find health insurance plans, as required by the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Many Americans have had difficulty signing up for insurance at the exchanges since they opened, due to heavy traffic on the websites and technical glitches plaguing them. It is unclear how many Americans have signed up for insurance since the exchanges opened; the Obama administration has not yet released enrollment figures.

Via: Gallup

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Consumer confidence plunges while other indicators hold up

Almost alone among economic indicators, consumer confidence has plunged during the government shutdown and as the possibility of a default nears.

The economic confidence index updated daily by Gallup has fallen steadily since the summer and dramatically since the shutdown began two weeks ago. This week, it registered its lowest reading -- negative 41 -- since the debt ceiling standoff of 2011, suggesting that Americans expect conditions to rapidly worsen.

No other major economic indicators have fallen so dramatically.

Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries remain at 2.7 percent, below where they were in August, despite the threat of a default. The Dow Jones industrial average had risen for three straight days before falling 133 points Tuesday. The U.S. dollar has risen against a basket of currencies following the shutdown.

Yet the consumer confidence index is a different story, raising the possibility that it is out of sync with underlying sentiment — or, more ominously, that other economic indicators haven't caught up yet.

Eric Sims, a University of Notre Dame economics professor who has studied movements in consumer confidence, said that there are "pretty tight links" between survey responses and subsequent consumer spending patterns. "What they say is what they do," he said, adding that the drop in confidence has been "troubling."

In part, consumer confidence reflects Americans’ reactions to ongoing economic trends. But there’s another component that reflects consumers’ uncertainty over news, according to Marta Lachowska.

In a study of daily Gallup polling in 2008 released this year by the W.E. Upjohn Institute, Lachowska, found that movements in daily confidence indices, independent of other economic indicators, lead to "very short fluctuations in consumer spending." That's because consumers are risk averse, Lachowska told the Washington Examiner, and they tighten their budgets in reaction to bad news.

Via: Washington Examiner

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OBAMA'S NEGATIVE POLLING WORSE THAN CLINTON'S IN 1995 SHUTDOWN

Gallup released a poll last week showing President Barack Obama's negative polling among Americans during the current government shutdown is substantially worse in comparison to the numbers the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had during his administration's shutdown in 1995. 

According to Gallup:

A majority of Americans, 57%, say they now view President Obama more negatively as a result of the shutdown, while 28% see him more positively. By contrast, during the December 1995 shutdown, 49% of Americans viewed Clinton more negatively and 35% more positively. Clinton's overall approval rating would tumble to 42% by the end of the 1995-96 shutdown, but rebounded later in 1996.

Gallup points out that Americans view the present shutdown as more serious than the 1995 government shutdown. Republican Congressional leaders are viewed similarly to how they were viewed during the 1995 shutdown, with 61 percent viewing them negatively. Democratic Congressional leaders are also viewed negatively by 58 percent of Americans.

President Obama's overall job approval rating has taken a sharp drop since he first came to office. Gallup's recorded Obama's approval rating at 67 percent when he first took office. That number has since plunged to 44 percent. 

Via: Breitbart

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Democrats won't win a 'blame the GOP' game on the shutdown and debt ceiling

Even after the 2011 debt ceiling crisis was resolved, President Obama's approval rating tanked. Photograph: AP Photo/Jim Watson

So, people currently blame the Republicans more than anyone else for the government shutdown, but predicting the long-term political fallout is not as easy as that suggests. For one thing, the latest CBS News pollshows that while slightly more people believe the Republicans are at fault, a majority of them are upset with both sides for the inability to avert this crisis.

The real story is not revealed by people's view of the politicians; it's contained in the indices of economic sentiment. Gallup finds thatAmericans' confidence in the economy has dropped like a rock, from -20pt just before the shutdown, to -35pt now. And it would not be surprising to see that measure continue to fall over coming days, with the deadline for raising the debt ceiling looming in ten days' time.

What we're seeing is a time-lag in consequences for the politicians. Gallup has President Obama's approval rating still within its normal range of 45%, plus or minus a few points.

But remember the debt ceiling battle of April to July 2011: the politicians solved that crisis without the US actually defaulting, yet the mere idea of a default hurt tremendously. S&P downgraded the United States' credit rating, while Gallup's economic confidence rating fellby 30pt, to -55.

Via: The Guardian

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POLITICO: UNPOPULAR OBAMA CLINGS TO 'HARD-LINE POSITION' IN DEBT CEILING GAMBLE

With President Barack Obama's Gallup approval rating down to just 45% after his mishandling of the Syrian crisis, and with CNN reporting that only 39% of Americans support Obamacare, White House officialstell Politico that "Obama doesn't see any reason to back off his hard-line position" on the looming debt ceiling showdown--a risky strategy that could drag Democrats down with him come the 2014 midterm elections.

On October 17, the federal government will officially hit the nation's $16.7 trillion debt ceiling. While polls show that more voters blame Republicans for the current government shutdown, polls also show that voters overwhelmingly side with Republicans in demanding that any raising of the debt ceiling be coupled with spending cuts. Indeed, a Bloomberg poll found that 61% of voters believe it is "right to require spending cuts when the debt ceiling is raised even if it risks default."

On Wednesday, Speaker John Boehner published an op-ed recounting House Republicans' numerous attempts to avert a government shutdown and stating Obama's refusal to negotiate on a deal to cut spending in exchange for agreeing to raise the debt limit.

"In just a few weeks, Congress must act to raise the debt limit to pay the tab for President Obama and Washington's out-of-control spending," wrote Boehner. "There is no way Congress can or should pass such a bill without spending cuts and reforms to deal with the debt and deficit and help get our economy moving again. But President Obama refuses to even talk about negotiating such a bipartisan agreement."

For months now, Obama and top Democrats have flatly refused to negotiate on the debt ceiling.

Via: Breitbart

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[VIDEO] GALLUP: UNEMPLOYMENT RATE JUMPS FROM 7.7% TO 8.9% IN 30 DAYS

Outside of the federal government's Bureau of Labor statistics, the Gallup polling organization also tracks the nation's unemployment rate. While the BLS and Gallup findings might not always perfectly align, the trends almost always do and the small statistical differences just haven't been worthy of note. But now Gallup is showing a sizable 30 day jump in the unemployment rate, from 7.7% on July 21 to 8.9% today.

This is an 18-month high.

At the end of July, the BLS showed a 7.4% unemployment rate, compared to Gallup's 7.8%. Again, a difference not worthy of note. But Gallup's upward trend to almost 9% in just the last three weeks is alarming, especially because this is not a poll with a history of wild swings due to statistical anomalies. Gallup's sample size is  a massive 30,000 adults and the rolling average is taken over a full 30 day period.

Gallup also shows an alarming increase in the number of underemployed (those with some work seeking more). During the same 30-day period, that number has jumped from 17.1% to 17.9%.

Via: Breitbart

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[VIDEO] GALLUP: ROMNEY UP 52-45% AMONG EARLY VOTERS

***MORE: Obama's Early Vote Advantage Collapses 22-Points Over 2008

Very early on, before this campaign started in earnest, live or die, I publicly cast my lot with Gallup and Rasmussen. As a poll addict going back to 2000, these are the outlets that have always played it straight. It's got nothing to do with politics and everything to do with credibility and not wanting to kid myself. So when an outlet like Gallup tells me Romney is up seven-points, 52-45%, among those who have already voted, that's verybig news.  

Just as Gallup did with their bombshell survey showing that 2012 is looking like a year where Republicans will enjoy a record three-point turnout advantage over Democrats (a ten-point shift from 2008), for whatever reason, they buried the lede with this latest bombshell, as well. When you consider the fact that the CorruptMedia's been talking for weeks about how Obama's crushing Romney in early voting, you would think Gallup proving that Narrative a big fat phony lie would be news. Instead, though, they bury this explosive news at the bottom of a piece headlined: "In U.S., 15% of Registered Voters Have Already Cast Ballots".

Via: Breitbart

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GALLUP: OBAMA'S EARLY VOTE ADVANTAGE COLLAPSES 22-POINTS OVER 2008

My pal Guy Benson found a juicy nugget that helps to bring more clarity to the news from Gallup yesterday that shows Romney leading Obama in the early vote by a full seven points, 52-45%. Almost exactly four years ago (October 28, 2008),  according to Gallup, Obama was massacring John McCain among early voters with a fifteen-point lead, 55-40%. That means, at least according to Gallup, that Obama's early vote advantage has dropped 22 points when compared to '08.

Benson also notes that the percentage of voters who have or intend to vote early was 33% in 2008 and remains at 33% today. As Don Surber said in this tweet, "People don't wait in line to vote for the status quo[.]"

In his email to me, Benson makes The Point: "Obama had a 55/40 lead on McCain with early voters in '08, but only led by 3 pts with the election day crowd.  He ended up winning by 7 overall."

In other words, among those who actually voted on Election Day, Obama's advantage over McCain was only three points. Obama won by seven overall because of the early vote margins he had accumulated. If Gallup is correct about 2012 and Romney being ahead by seven with early voters, that means Obama's in very deep trouble. Even polls that show Obama with a small lead in states like Ohio confirm Romney will win among those who vote on Election Day.

Like me, Benson is skeptical of Gallup because, like its daily tracker that gives Romney a five point lead over Obama nationally, this early voting poll defies the CorruptMedia's conventional wisdom. But there are a few things you have to keep in mind.

Via: Breitbart

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Gallup: Obama's Job Approval Drops 7 Points in 3 Days

President Barack Obama in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Oct. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

(CNSNews.com) - In the most precipitous decline it has seen in more than a year, President Barack Obama's job approval rating has dropped 7 points in three days,according to Gallup.

In the three-day period ending on Oct. 23, says Gallup, 53 percent said they approved of the job Obama was doing and 42 percent said they did not.

On Oct. 24, that dropped to 51 percent who said they approved and 44 percent who said they do not.

On Oct. 25, it dropped again to 48 percent who said they approved and 47 percent who said they do not.

On Oct. 26, it dropped yet again to 46 percent who said they approved and 49 percent who said they did not.

In May 2011, Obama's approval dropped 7 points in four days, sliding from 53 percent on May 24 to 46 percent on May 28.

Via: CNS News

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GALLUP: 2012 ELECTORATE MORE REPUBLICAN THAN 2004

This morning, Gallup released a bombshell survey of likely voters this November. It wasn't a horse race poll, i.e. which candidate is ahead, but rather a look at the underlying demographics that will make up the electorate this November. They slap the survey with a very misleading headline, "2012 U.S. Electorate Looks Like 2008." While this is true in many respects, it obscures one very big difference. For the first time in a presidential election, more Republicans will vote than Democrats. 

In 2008, 54% of likely voters identified as Democrat or lean Democrat. 42% of likely voters identified as GOP or lean GOP. In other words, the electorate, including independents who lean towards a particular party, was D+12. This year, however, the Democrat advantage has disappeared. 49% of likely voters today identify as GOP or lean GOP. Just 46% of likely voters are or lean towards the Democrats. This is a 15-point swing towards the GOP from 2008 to an outright +3 advantage for the GOP. By comparison, in 2004, when Bush won reelection, the electorate was evenly split, with each party getting support from 48% of likely voters. 

If these numbers are within even a few points of what this survey suggests, then Romney will win decisively and the GOP will pick up the Senate. We are likely standing on the edge of another GOP wave election. 

Keep in mind, the Gallup survey suggests that voter turnout among Obama's biggest supporters, i.e. minorities and young voters, will generally match 2008 levels. Obama's problem is that, relatively speaking, there just aren't that many of these voters. Voters under 30 will make up 13% of the electorate, one point below '08 and even with '04. Minorities will make up 20%, up 5 from '04 and only up 1 point from '08. 

Obama's chief problem is that everyone else in the electorate has become much more Republican. 

Via: Breitbart

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