Some good news out of the new ABC News/WaPo poll on people's attitudes toward President Obama and the economy:

The percentage of Americans in the new poll who said the country is on the right track still stands at just 42 percent, but that is the highest percentage saying so in five years and marks a sharp turnabout from last fall, when as many as nine in 10 said the country was heading in the wrong direction. Fifty-seven percent now consider the nation as moving on the wrong track.

In addition:

Overall perceptions about the country parallel a rapid increase in the percentage of Americans who say the economy is improving. For the first time since late 2004, the gap between the numbers saying the economy is getting better and those saying it's getting worse is in the single digits (27 percent to 36 percent).

And despite the best efforts of many to convince us otherwise, the president's approval numbers are holding strong.

Two-thirds of Americans approve of the way Obama is handling the country's top job, and six in 10 give him good marks on issue No. 1, the flagging economy. Those figures are little changed from last month.

Not insignificantly, the American people reject the idea pushed by Matt Dowd on This Week on Sunday that less than 2 months in, Obama now owns this economic crisis.

At this early stage in his presidency, Obama continues to benefit from a broadly held perception that others should bear the bulk of responsibility for the severe economic problems that confront his administration. Americans see plenty of offenders, but only about a quarter blame the president and his team for an economy that's in the ditch [...]

When it comes to assessing responsibility for the nation's economic plight, 80 percent said they put a "great deal" or a "good amount" of blame on banks and other financial institutions for taking unnecessary risks. The same percentage said they blame large corporations for poor management decisions. About seven in 10 blame consumers for overextending themselves with debt and the Bush administration for not vigorously regulating the financial industry.

The poll is not all rainbows and butterflies, however. Obama is seeing some dip in support among Independents across the board and the one GOP message that seems to be getting through is criticism over how Obama is handling the deficit (thanks, ConservaDems!) Also, while 64% of respondents said they "have confidence that Obama's economic policies will improve the economy," that is down 8 points since before his inauguration.

Most of any dip in support for the president is, of course, due to plummeting Republican support (yes, SHOCK!, the electorate is getting more and more polarized, wonder why.) It's also a natural function of the inevitable gap between campaign rhetoric and governing reality, all the more impressive, then, that Obama's numbers are staying as steady as they are. The bigger picture I think is pretty clear: the president still has a mandate for change if only the congress would enable him to enact it (I'm talking to you, Democrats.)

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A new Gallup poll taken the day of and the two days following President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, finds the President's approval rating has jumped up 8 points to 67% and his disapproval has dropped 4 points to 21% from the prior 3-day period. Obama's term-high approval rating was 69% just after his inauguration.

A 12 point net gain virtually overenight shows just how dramatic an impression President Obama made Tuesday night. What's even more dramatic though is where this newfound support is coming from:

Obama's approval rebound is due to increased support from all political groups, but especially from independents and Republicans, whose support had been waning. Over the past week, independents' approval of Obama dropped from 62% to 54%, but is now back to 62%. There has been a sharp increase in support among Republicans, from 27% to 42%. Democrats' support for Obama was already extremely high at 86%, but even this has climbed slightly, to 90% in the latest polling.

I figured he'd get a bump but those numbers among Republicans are ridiculous.

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Another dismal congressional job approval number (pdf) and, like clockwork, more handwringing over congress (read: Democrats) being less popular than Bush.

The Democratic-controlled Congress and President Bush seem locked in a perverse competition for public unfavorability, according to a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll.

The survey shows Bush's approval ratings at 35 percent, and Congress' even lower, 25 percent. Only 27 percent of those polled said the country is headed in the right direction, and 39 percent said they support the Iraq war, with 58 percent opposed.

While Bush's favorability ratings have remained relatively unchanged for months, Congress' support declined markedly between May and July, a dip confirmed in a poll of 1,003 people taken last week.

The subtext of the narrative the Republicans and the media love to spin with this juxtaposition was summed up by concern troll David Broder, who confidently announced on Meet The Press in June:

I think [the Democrats] will suffer the same consequences that the Republicans suffered a year ago. People are fed up with seeing Washington bickering, fighting, in-fighting and never dealing with the issue.

Now, I'm not going to say I'm thrilled with these numbers, nor am I going to pretend they're entirely undeserved. It's actually quite depressing that our majority couldn't be more effective at curbing this president's radical agenda. But am I worried this mass unfavorability is going to cause Democrats to lose the majority? Hardly. On the contrary, it looks like it could even help them to build on it.

From an Aug. 3 Democracy Corps strategy memo (pdf) based on polling from the 70 most competitive Congressional districts:

The gridlock and partisan battles in Washington are hurting the Republicans, with no evidence here of lost prospective support for Democrats. Republicans own the mess in Washington as voters in both Democratic and Republican-held districts blame the President and Republicans more than the Democrats for the gridlock in Washington - by 19 and 13 points respectively. And this has electoral consequences. By 52 to 38 percent, voters in these battleground districts say the gridlock in Washington makes them want to see more Democrats elected to the Congress. That same dynamic is at work even in the Republican-held seats.

In other words, people get that the Democratic congress they voted for in 2006 was conditional on a Democratic president and/or a larger majority and 2008's their chance to finish the job. I'm not saying this to let ineffective members off the hook. In fact, this finding is actually an argument for Democrats in congress to be MORE combative, especially when it comes to fighting for Democratic values, which the polling suggests have majority support even in swing districts. The president and Republicans in congress are going to be intransigent anyway; they're going to paint Democrats as weak on terror and big spending liberals anyway; they're counting on Democrats not realizing there's an electoral upside to actually taking them on aggressively rather than cowering for fear of being accused of partisan bickering.

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So there was some talk a while back about how Pelosi's approval rating had dropped significantly below her post-election levels to be pretty much on par with the rest of congress. I always found this somewhat hard to believe, and I jsut happened upon a poll over at Rasmussen which puts her at 40%:

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Nancy Pelosi?

Very Favorable - 11%

Somewhat Favorable -29%

Somewhat Unfavorable - 21%

Very Unfavorable -26%

I will point out that Rasmussen is somewhat unreliable because they oversample conservatives(for example, they usually have Bush's approval at about 8 or 9 points higher levels than anyone else), but I don't think that bias would throw off numbers on Pelosi - if anything they make high positives even more striking. What is really interesting is that Harry Reid is not as liked, despite being much more prominent in his fight against the war lately:

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Harry Reid?

Very Favorable - 7%

Somewhat Favorable - 27%

Somewhat Unfavorable - 23%

Very Unfavorable - 20%

I think Pelosi is a stronger speaker than she is given credit for.
 

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(Cross-posted at www.thinkyouth.net and www.democrats.org)

For those of you who haven't heard already, the poll numbers for the 110th Congress have hit new lows. With an approval rating in the 24-27 % range, and disapproval ratings in the 60-71 % range, America appears to be unhappier with the Congress than they are with the President (approval 26-31%, disapproval 60-66%). My question is, why is this happening?

While true I did predict in November that citizens would quickly get frustrated with Congress once they realized that they couldn't do everything they promised at once, I didn't predict Congressional approval ratings going below the President's. Some seem to think that this discontent with Congress indicates discontent with the Democrats, and yet polls show that voters still would rather have a Democrat representing them then a Republican.

So again, my question is, why are the numbers so bad? Don't the American people realize that while Democrats may have full control of the House, they have a razor-thin majority in the Senate, which often acts as a roadblock? And don't they realize that there aren't enough Democrats to override any Presidential veto? I think the most important question here is why the American people disapprove of Congress's job more that the President's, even though the President is the one who is vetoing the legislation the American people want!

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