April 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is winning higher marks from Americans than the last three presidents early in their terms as he takes on a global recession, two wars and domestic fights over government spending, health care and taxes.
Obama’s approval rating climbed to a high of 66 percent in an April 1-5 New York Times/CBS News poll released today. The poll follows recent surveys by the Gallup Poll, Quinnipiac University and the Pew Research Center showing that about six out of 10 Americans approve of the job the president is doing.
A Gallup Poll taken in March gave Obama, a Democrat, a 64 percent approval rating. That compares with 56 percent for Republican George H.W. Bush, 52 percent for Democrat Bill Clinton and 53 percent for Republican George W. Bush at similar points in their presidencies. The last Bush left office with an approval rating of 34 percent, according to a Jan. 9-11 Gallup Poll.
“Bush’s popularity was so low it created an opportunity for Obama by contrast to win the hearts and minds of the country,” said Julian Zelizer, a history and public-affairs professor at Princeton University in New Jersey. “He has also consistently shown that magic quality that politician yearn for, the ‘it’ factor which leads people to like what you do.”
Gains in U.S. stock markets have also helped Obama in recent weeks, Zelizer said. The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index has climbed more than 20 percent since March 9, even after today’s 2.4 percent decline.
Reagan’s Ratings
Former President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, saw his approval rating rise from 51 percent soon after his inauguration to 60 percent in mid-March 1981. After a failed attempt on his life on March 30 of that year, Reagan’s approval climbed to 67 percent in early April and stayed at that level until June in the Gallup Poll.
Early popularity doesn’t guarantee a president’s success. The approval ratings for former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, in the Gallup Poll started at 66 percent and climbed as high as 75 percent by March 1977. The Iran hostage crisis, gasoline shortages and double-digit inflation helped cause Carter’s approval to drop to 34 percent in December 1980, before he left office after having lost his re-election bid to Reagan.
Obama had an approval rating of 58 percent in a Quinnipiac poll conducted March 24-30. In a March 9-12 Pew poll, Obama had a 59 percent approval rating.
Obama’s 66 percent approval rating in the recently completed New York Times/CBS survey compared with a 55 percent rating for Clinton and 53 percent approval for George W. Bush at about the same points in their first terms.
The new poll showed that 24 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Obama is doing, compared with 20 percent in March and 22 percent in February. The telephone survey of 998 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. |
