One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating

by Jonathan Singer, Sun Jul 19, 2009 at 08:19:04 PM EDT

The Pollster.com trend estimate puts Barack Obama's approval rating at 54.2 percent, with 40.1 percent disapproving -- a good deal below the 60 percent/33 percent spread found in the latest Gallup polling. Why the difference? Ask Rasmussen Reports. Taking out the automated pollster from the mix, Barack Obama's approval rating is a net 7 percentage points better. Interesting, no?

Tags: Approval Rating, Barack Obama (all tags)

  • 22 Comments
  • 0 recs
  • Share
  • Permalink

Comments

22 Comments

Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating

ABC News has him at 49% today...

House Health Care Bill gets 56% approval at the moment...

by LordMike 2009-07-19 08:41PM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating

* 59% *

Sorry, big typo!

OBAMA IS AT 59%!!!  That's FIFTY-NINE PERCENT

Didn't mean to scare y'all...

by LordMike 2009-07-19 08:43PM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating
It took me a few tiems to get what you were saying.
So he's at 59%, I get it now.
by spirowasright 2009-07-20 11:50AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating

That approval rating is higher than where Reagan was at his 6 month time.  Reagan's on the ABC poll was at 57%.

by puma 2009-07-20 03:19AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
A better average pollster is RCP

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/

This poll average just takes the average of all the polls of the week and Rasmussen is just one of the polls out of the group.

by puma 2009-07-20 03:28AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating

Maybe people give an honest answer to the automated pollster because they fear the real person might be a cultist who will beat them up.

by Steve M 2009-07-20 04:21AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Cute

In all seriousness, I'm pretty sure that automated pollsters feature a significantly older audience... people who A) have more time to kill, and B) don't rely on cell phones as their primary telephone.  Didn't McCain win the over 60 crowd?

by Dracomicron 2009-07-20 05:59AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: Cute

I'm not sure if you're right - I can also imagine older respondents being more reluctant to play the button-pushing game - but surely there's SOME reason Rasmussen is way off from the results everyone else gets.  I'd imagine the experts like Mark Blumenthal and Nate Silver have an understanding of the differences between an automated polling sample and a live sample - although I'd also imagine that if the difference was easy to quantify ("automated polls oversample elderly respondents by 10%") the automated pollsters would correct for it!

I believe Survey USA is also automated and there have at least been some election cycles where they turned out to be the gold standard, although it varies.  So I don't think automated polling is inherently defective.  But no matter how you slice it, if Rasmussen says one thing and five other polls say a different thing, the smart money says Rasmussen is the outlier.

by Steve M 2009-07-20 06:35AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: Cute

Rasmussen polls are of "likely voters".  I don't know what the voter screen is of that, but I'm sure it's something like, "Did you vote for Nixon?"  If you say no, you are too young to be considered "likely".

by LordMike 2009-07-20 09:10AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: Cute

But all real Americans voted for Nixon!

All kidding aside, the very concept of "likely voters" this far in advance of an election is just silly.

by Steve M 2009-07-20 09:29AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
huh?

by DTOzone 2009-07-20 08:01AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating

The Kos poll has him at 62% holding firm.  Lower poll ratings feed into the manufactured media meme that momentum is starting to shift from him.  A manufactured bit of psychodrama that all the cable and network TV media seems to be buying into.

by Bob H 2009-07-20 05:12AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating

Seriously, Steve M. do you think that all other polling organizations are staffed by "cultist who will beat" respondents up?

Have you ever been polled or done any polling yourself? The last thing the polling org. caller would want to do is deviate from the script. They would not be employed long if they did, that is a terminatable offense.

by MichiganMark 2009-07-20 05:43AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note on Obama's Approval Rating

It's not whether they are actually staffed by cultists, it's whether poll respondents might have reason to fear such a thing.  I'm sure we all remember what happened to that poor Ashley Todd.

by Steve M 2009-07-20 06:32AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Why does anyone even look at Rasmussen anymore?

Seriously, they've favored Republicans/disfavored Democrats by about 5% for as long as I've paid attention.

by Dracomicron 2009-07-20 05:56AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: One More Note

I am not up on how cell phones factor into polling but I do know that use of cell phones as the primary phone (or only phone) is growing.   How do pollsters account for this?

by RichardFlatts 2009-07-20 07:15AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
We remember that "poor Ashley Todd"
as being a self mutilating, race baiting, Obama hating wack job. Not a good example.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Todd _mugging_hoax
by MichiganMark 2009-07-20 07:45AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: We remember that "poor Ashley Todd"

Oh, I see someone has their liberal talking points in order today!

by Steve M 2009-07-20 07:47AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: We remember that "poor Ashley Todd"

Well Steve, sometimes people just don't get it...

by JDF 2009-07-20 08:10AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Re: We remember that "poor Ashley Todd"

I will not be lectured by someone who can't even find the "reply" button! ;)

by Steve M 2009-07-20 08:34AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
It's not that it's an automated pollster

Automated pollsters can be every bit as accurate as live-person pollsters.

It's just the weighting and the sampling that they use is notoriously conservative-leaning. It could happen just as easily with a live-person calling (see Resurgent Republic).

by fbihop 2009-07-20 11:33AM | 0 recs
Shadow_head_small
Rasmussen is on the GOP Payroll

check out how Rasmussen has been a recent "consultant" for the GOP and for G.W.Bush:

http://projects.publicintegrity.org/cons ultants/list.aspx?act=conDetail&id=1 22002

by jeopardy 2009-07-20 11:42AM | 0 recs

Diaries

Advertise Blogads


----------- myDD - skin -----------