Rasmussen: Obama Approval at 50%

May 17, 2011

Comments

Via Rasmussen: Daily Presidential Tracking Poll:

Overall, 50% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove.

Of course, if we look at Rasmussen’s “Presdential Approval Index” we see that Obama is at a -7:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 27% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -7.

To be honest, I find that metric to be an odd one, and not necessarily all that useful.

8 responses to “Rasmussen: Obama Approval at 50%”

Chad S

May 17, 2011 at 12:35 pm

Its Rasmussen, they have their finger on the scale.
Tano

May 17, 2011 at 1:15 pm

The “Presidential Approval Index” is a totally phony metric, invented by Rasmussen in January 2009, so as to handle the unpleasantness of having to report the numbers of a popular Democrat.

By focusing only on the intense feelings, you simply measure the size of the manic bases on either side – most certainly NOT the factor of interest surrounding the fortunes of a president – whose real approval, and fate is in the hands of the people in the middle.

It allowed Rasmussen, at a time when Obama first took office and had approvals in the high 60s (a big sounding number) – and had net approvals in the high thirties ( another big sounding number) – to report an “Approval Index” number in the mid twenties.

By June of the first year, when most polls had Obama still around 60, and even Ras had total approval in the mid-fifties, the “Index” came up with ZERO approval – and even started to go negative.

Its a total spin instrument – I predict that Ras will admit that it is not very useful around the time that the next Republican president takes office.