Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Saturday, February 27, 2010 Email to a Friend ShareThis.Advertisement
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 22% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for President Obama.
The only other time the Approval Index was this low came in late December as the U.S. Senate prepared to approve its version of health care reform (see trends). Most voters continue to oppose the proposed health care plan.
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 are also available on Twitter and Facebook.
Overall, 43% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. That is the lowest level of total approval yet measured for this President. Fifty-five percent (55%) disapprove. The President earns approval from 76% of Democrats while 86% of Republicans disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 38% approve and 61% disapprove. The President earns approval from 37% of men and 49% of women.
Data for these updates is collected via nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, just two-thirds of the interviews for today’s update were collected following the President’s health-care summit. Tomorrow morning (Sunday) will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the summit.
In his new book, In Search of Self-Governance, Scott Rasmussen observes that the American people are “united in the belief that our political system is broken, most politicians are corrupt, and neither major political party has the answers.” He adds that there is a “growing disdain for the unholy alliance between the largest corporations and our government… Some of us are ready to give up; some of us are ready to scream a little louder. But all of us believe we can do better.”
In Search of Self-Governance is available from Rasmussen Reports and at Amazon.com.
The book has received positive reviews from Dick Morris, Joe Trippi, Bill Kristol and others.
Also be sure to check out our review of last week’s key polls to see “What They Told Us.”
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Just 10% give Congress good or excellent marks, while 71% rate Congressional performance as poor. Republicans continue to lead by nine on the Generic Congressional Ballot.
Rasmussen Reports has polled on 2010 Senate races in Nevada, Colorado, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, California, Indiana, Wisconsin, Washington, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina and Iowa.
Rasmussen Reports has also released polls on the 2010 governor’s races in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina Wisconsin, and Texas.
Scott Rasmussen has recently had several columns published in the Wall Street Journal addressing how President Obama is losing independent voters , health care reform, the President's approval ratings, and how Obama won the White House by campaigning like Ronald Reagan. If you'd like Scott to speak at your meeting, retreat, or conference, contact Premiere Speakers Bureau. You can also learn about his favorite place on earth or his time working with hockey legend Gordie Howe.
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. It is also important to check the details of question wording when comparing approval ratings from different firms.
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Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (see methodology). Pollsters for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have cited our “unchallenged record for both integrity and accuracy.”
Data from the Washington Post confirms that Rasmussen Reports was well ahead of other media coverage on the Massachusetts Senate race. In the 2009 New Jersey Governor’s race, automated polls tended to be more accurate than operator-assisted polling techniques. On reviewing the state polling results from 2009, Mickey Kaus offered this assessment, “If you have a choice between Rasmussen and, say, the prestigious N.Y. Times, go with Rasmussen!”
During Election 2008, liberal blogger Nate Silver said that the Rasmussen tracking poll “would probably be the one I'd want with me on a desert island."
In 2008, Obama won 53%-46% and our final poll showed Obama winning 52% to 46%. While we were pleased with the final result, Rasmussen Reports was especially pleased with the stability of our results. On every single day for the last six weeks of the campaign, our daily tracking showed Obama with a stable and solid lead attracting more than 50% of the vote.
An analysis by Pollster.com partner Charles Franklin “found that despite identically sized three-day samples, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll is less variable than Gallup.” During Election 2008, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll was the least volatile of all those tracking the race.
We also have provided a summary of our 2008 state-by-state Presidential results for your review.
In 2004 George W. Bush received 50.7% of the vote while John Kerry earned 48.3%. Rasmussen Reports was the only firm to project both candidates’ totals within half a percentage point by projecting that Bush would win 50.2% to 48.5%. (see our 2004 results).
See also our 2008 state results for Senate and governor. See 2006 results for Senate and governor.
Pollster.com founder Mark Blumenthal noted that “independent analyses from the National Council on Public Polls, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the Pew Research Center, the Wall Street Journal and FiveThirtyEight.com have all shown that the horse-race numbers produced by automated telephone surveys did at least as well as those from conventional live-interviewer surveys in predicting election outcomes.”
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. Since the November 2008 election, the number of Democrats in the country has declined while the number of unaffiliated voters has grown.
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 35.6% Democrats, 33.1% Republicans, and 31.2% unaffiliated. Likely voter samples typically show a slightly smaller advantage for the Democrats. |
