Posted Jun 01, 2009 at 10:30 AM by Maurice Berger
Gallup publishes this chart, which compares the approval ratings of president's over the past sixty-years in May of their first year in office. As you can see, only three other president's have done better than Obama, though all but two came in over the 60% mark. Kennedy and Eisenhower's approvals were in the stratosphere, at 77% and 74% respectively. Reagan is third at 68%; Obama not far behind at 65%. The numbers for Lyndon Johnson are not reported (perhaps because he was not elected to his first term, having assumed office upon the dead of John Kennedy in November 1963):
Tagged: 2009, presidential approval ratings, President Barack Obama, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton
Posted Dec 04, 2008 at 1:22 PM by Maurice Berger
Gallup is out with an interesting analysis of the approval ratings of lame duck presidents, evaluations that usually rise as the leader's terms drwas to an end: "It is common for presidents who are about to leave the White House to
receive a bump in their job approval ratings between Election Day and
Inauguration Day. Of the eight post-World War II presidents who left
office after serving two terms, declining to seek an additional term,
or being defeated for re-election, six saw increased job approval
ratings in their final two-plus months in office . . . The largest spike occurred for the elder George Bush, of whom only 34%
of Americans approved in October 1992, shortly before Bill Clinton
defeated him for re-election. Immediately after the election, Bush's
approval rating jumped to 43%, and by the time he left office, his
rating had increased further to 56% -- a remarkable increase of 22
percentage points . . . Harry S. Truman and Jimmy Carter are the only two post-World War II presidents
whose approval ratings did not improve after their successors were
selected." Recent public opinion polls indicate that George W. Bush's end-of-term popularity registers a modest rise, on average +4%.
Tagged: George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan
Posted Oct 27, 2008 at 2:26 PM by Maurice Berger
McCain has his work cut out for him if history is any model. According to Gallup, "there have been only 2 instances in the past 14 elections, from 1952 to
2004, when the presidential candidate ahead in Gallup polling a week or
so before the election did not win the national popular vote: in 2000
(George W. Bush) and 1980 (Jimmy Carter). And in only one of these, in
1980, did the candidate who was behind (Ronald Reagan) pull ahead in
both the popular vote and the Electoral College and thus win the
election." Thus, the 1980 election represents the only time in over 50 years that a candidate behind nationally one week before the election went on to win the popular vote and an electoral majority.
Tagged: John McCain, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan
