The latest Rasmussen poll shows that, for the first time, a majority disapproves of President Obama’s job performance, 51% to 49%. He also faces an eight point deficit among those who feel strongly, 38%-30%. Only 37% of independents approve.
Other polls have also shown a sharp drop in the president’s numbers, but still have him in the mid-fifties. Why is Rasmussen’s result different? They explain:
When comparing Job Approval data from different firms, it’s important to keep in mind that polls of likely voters and polls of all adults will typically and consistently yield different results. In the case of President Obama, polls by all firms measuring all adults typically show significantly higher approval ratings than polls of likely voters. Polls of registered voters typically fall in the middle. Other factors are also important to consider when comparing Job Approval ratings from different polling firms.
Most polls use a broader sample most of the time, even during election campaigns, and shift to likely voters just before the election takes place. I think Rasmussen does better by being consistent.
It’s also worth nothing that Rasmussen did the best job at predicting the outcome of the 2008 election, tied with Pew Research. (CNN did slightly better with its actual prediction, but had a much wider margin of error, giving it a greater average error.)
(Via Power Line.)
UPDATE: What Rasmussen calls the approval index (strong approval vs. strong disapproval) hits double digits at -11, with 29% strongly approving and 40% strongly disapproving.
Doing the arithmetic, that means 29% strongly approve, 20% weakly approve, 11% weakly disapprove, and 40% strongly disapprove. Wow.
UPDATE: For what it’s worth (not much), Zogby has Obama down as well, at 48% approval against 51% disapproval. But Zogby is usually a left-leaning poll, so it might be worth something. In the 2008 election Zogby over-estimated Obama’s margin of victory more than nearly any other major poll (only CBS/NYT and Newsweek did worse). Even the Fair model, which does no polling and doesn’t even know who the candidates are, did better.
(Via Hot Air.)
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