President Obama starts 2010 with 50 percent approval
politico.com
By ANDY BARR | 1/6/10 8:21 AM EST
The president has a 44 percent disapproval rating. Photo: AP
President Barack Obama enters 2010 with one of the lowest approval ratings of any president heading into his second year, according to a new Gallup poll out Wednesday.
Fifty percent approve of how Obama has handled his job as president, the second lowest total since Gallup started polling. Obama beats only Ronald Reagan, who started 1982 with a 49 percent approval rating.
The president has a 44 percent disapproval rating.
“President Obama has been walking the public opinion tightrope represented by the 50 approval job approval line since about mid-November, with his rating wavering between 47 approval and 53 approval,” wrote Gallup’s Lydia Saad in her analysis.
Among the presidents Gallup has polled, George W. Bush entered his second year with the highest approval rating, getting 84 percent only a few months removed from the September 11 terrorist attacks and on the heels of the invasion of Afghanistan.
Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, had an 80 percent approval rating after his first year, the second highest total.
John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon rounded out the top five, getting 79 percent, 71 percent and 61 percent respectively.
Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were the only other presidents polled who, like Obama, started their second years as president in the 50s, earning 55 percent and 54 percent, respectively.
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