Resurgent Republic

President Obama’s job approval rating is roughly 51% to 52% and his disapproval ranges from 41% to 43% with the last disapproval figure at 43%. So let’s call the job approval surplus approximately 10 points (which differs from his net-negative approval rating on the economy and health care). His job approval rating has been essentially flat for the last 60 days, with maybe a slight down drift. Disapproval keeps inching up, albeit very slowly.

The chart differs from earlier data in that I have deleted Rasmussen's numbers in the calculation of the disapproval trend line. I left his data points in the graph, but did not use them to calculate the trend.

The next 10 to 15 days of data should be instructive. The House health care
vote does not (per the numbers) seem to have given President Obama any benefit, and given the loud negative commentary, I suspect he is more likely to be dragged down than boosted up.

The generally ugly mood of the citizenry (the track number, Congressional approval, generic vote, and confidence) reflects unending bad news especially for the economy.

President Obama's job approval numbers may not be as meaningful for him because he has a job for another three years. The members of his party, however, who need to run for re-election next year may be seeing all this differently.