Daily Presidential Tracking Poll (8/2: -6)

Rasmussen Reports ^ | 8/2/2009 | Scott Rasmussen

[markomalley]

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 31% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -6 (see trends).

That’s the President’s best Approval Index rating since the morning of his press conference a week-and-a-half ago. Typically, Presidents get a positive bounce in the polls following a nationally televised press conference. The bounce then disappears after a relatively short period of time. This time, the numbers fell following the press conference. But, the negative bounce may now have faded just like positive bounces do.

Still, during the month of July, the number of Americans who consider themselves Democrats fell by two percentage points. At 36.8%, there are now fewer Democrats than at any point since December 2007. However, the number of Republicans has held fairly steady over the past year.

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, 50% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) now disapprove.

As Congress prepares for its August recess, Rasmussen Reports has provided a summary of recent polling on health care reform. You can also check out our review of last week’s key polls to see “What They Told Us.”

Polling released earlier by Rasmussen Reports showed that most Americans opposed the Cash for Clunkers program, but a large number were willing to take the money if it was offered.

It is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama's numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That's because some of the President's most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote. Other factors are also important to consider when comparing Job Approval ratings from different polling firms.

On Thursday, the President hosted Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., for a beer on the White House lawn. Thirty percent (30%) of voters nationwide give the President good or excellent marks for his handling of the situation. A Rasmussen video report notes that 62% of Americans believe race relations in the nation are improving. This is one aspect of race relations where white and black voters generally agree.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Americans are concerned about an outbreak of the swine flu this fall. Fifty percent (50%) would rather cut mail delivery services rather than having the federal government provide subsidies to maintain daily service.

Forty-nine percent (49%) now say that America’s best days have come and gone. Just 38% believe they are still to come. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the country is heading in the right direction. Seventy-five percent (75%) want the Federal Reserve to be audited.

For more measures of the President's performance, see Obama By the Numbers and recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls.

If you'd like Scott Rasmussen to speak at your meeting, retreat, or conference, contact Premiere Speakers Bureau. You can also learn about Scott's favorite place on earth or his time working with hockey legend Gordie Howe.

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 38.4% Democrats, 32.7% Republicans, and 28.9% 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.

[markomalley]

The trend is going the wrong direction.

However, there are some reasons behind that: people taking advantage of the "cash for clunkers" program is artificially boosting up the auto industry; the government programs for housing are artificially boosting up housing starts. Companies have done mass layoffs, reducing their costs and improving their quarterly reports, thus an increase in stock prices.

As a result, the stock market is temporarily going up, helping folks' 401(k) investments.

Having said that, none of the good news is organic: it is all a facade that will run out in a period of weeks or months.

What I'm saying is this 3 day trend is bad news -- but it is only temporary.

[library user]

Now he’s back up 6%? WTF?

[library user]

I meant 6 points; not 6 percent.

[loveliberty2]

American citizens need to wake up to the counterfeit ideas and false "hopes" offered by politicians who use "promises," just as the rest of us use "currency."

They buy votes with "promises" in order to gain power to themselves and their ilk. Then, when "hopes" are dashed, "the people" they have promised to help (the naive, the poor, the ignorant--even the "educated" who are ignorant of liberty vs. tyranny) find themselves enslaved, working for those who have purchased their power in the most despicable manner--by offering "hope and change." Thus it has ever been.

The people who founded America were not so "dumbed down." Hear two of them:

"It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle [usurpation of power] and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much . . . to forget it." - James Madison

" . . . nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the penshioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, lusury, foppery, selfishness, meanness and downright venality swallow up the whole society." - John Adams

Further, it was not just the founding leaders who were well-informed about their constitution and approaching threats to its protections. By the Year 1830, when the French jurist Tocqueville traveled America, he wrote admiringly of the citizenry, observing that even the backwoodsman was far more well-read and informed than those in other parts of the world, and that they understood their Constitution, and had with them a Bible and a newspaper. Sadly, beginning in the mid-20th Century, our "government" schools removed the ideas of liberty from the nation's textbooks, largely under the guise of a counterfeit idea of "separation of church and state," and the citizenry is uninformed as to the difference between tyranny and liberty.

Today, with all modern means of communication, Americans possess little understanding of threats to their liberty and, thus, risk losing it to charlatans whose only goal is power.

[cranked]

It is Sunday...people tend to be more forgiving. /s ;-)

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

The week-long “The Recession is Over!” campaign... culminating in Friday’s “better than expected” GDP numbers (which buried the “twice as bad as we thought” correction of the previous GDP numbers).

They’re going to use the recess to build him back up for the health care debate. Be prepared for an onslaught of lies about the economy.

[Paine in the Neck]

He seems to always get a favorable bump on the weekend. Your chart appears to show a 7 day periodicity by my eyeball FFT.

[Sarah Barracuda]

People are sheep, the media tells them the recession is over, so now they are Obama fans again. Typical sheep

[bigbob]

Obama could drop trou and take a dump in the middle of Pennsylvania Ave. and 30% of people polled woult say he did a Good or Excellent job of it.

[CommieCutter]

Be prepared for an onslaught of lies about the economy.

---

This has been going on since Bush took office, with the exception being the last downturn (sort of).
I can remember in 2002-2003 when GDP numbers were in the +1.9% to + 2.2% range: THESE SAME JERKS WERE TELLING US WE WERE STILL IN RECESSION!!!
Now the Economy is recovered BUT IT’S STILL IN DECLINE.

F%$kING liaRS!!! Every last d@mn one of them!!!

[uncbob]

Now he’s back up 6%? WTF?

I knew there was TOO much elation here at FR

I saw it happen when McCain came out of the convention at 52% and numerous times with each Clinton scandal . The MSM and spin merchants always came to the rescue

[barnicus]

Well said.

[barnicus]

Well said.

[uncommonsense]

Rasmussen polls are reflective of sentiment 3 days ago.

I think the uptick in Barry's poll number is based on the Rats successful baiting the Republicans to accept the premise that 1) our health care system is broken to a large degree, 2) US outcomes are worse than most industrialized countries, and 3) Barry seeks "reform". Of course, none of this is true.

Pubs need to wise up about letting the Rats redefine common language and goals.

[uncbob]

F%$kING liaRS!!! Every last d@mn one of them!!!

Drives you nuts but the MSM sadly controls a hell of a lot of opinions

[9YearLurker]

Ouch!

[cookcounty]

Huge uptick for O

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Amazing, isn’t it? We hit the 4th consecutive quarter of negative growth — the technical definition of a depression — and the media screams “The Recession’s Over!” in unison.

Yet Bush’s recession started before a single quarter of negative growth, according to these shameless propagandists.

When there is no objective truth, words have no meaning.

[lucias_clay]

The approve/unapprove spread is largely unchanged. Folks is just moving from “strongly unapprove to unapprove” and from “approve to strongly approve” but not across the divide itself.

[AmericanSphinx71]

Yeah, I feared the dowtuen in his numbers would be short lived. I never felt they were that low to begin with.

The man is beloved. Everywhere you turn you got people in 0bama t-shirts and other merchandise. There is a aura of good feeling everywhere despite the grave situation in this country. No matter how bad he does, people just love him. I don’t know why, but they do.

You got the conservative minority who are solidly against him, but most people stand with him.

It’s a tough fight we have and I don’t how we can win it. I really believe by the end of the year we will have 0bamacare, Cap and Trade, a very radical Fairness Doctrine (Rush, Sean, Mark, Laura, Glenn will all be off the air) and 0bama will be riding high with 70% approval ratings.

Sorry, there is nothing giving me “hope’ right now. It’s all pessimism with this guy.