Presidential approval ratings suggest Obama is a one term President – or maybe a two term.
Gallup has a cool app on their website allowing you to compare approval ratings across Presidents.
Here is Obama compared to the last two one-term Presidents – George HW Bush and Jimmy Carter. So far, Obama is tracking pretty closely to Jimmy Carter’s trajectory.
Not looking so good for Obama, although I was also interested in the amazing collapse in popularity of Bush Sr. His popularity in early 1991 was nearly 90%. One year later he was below 40% and never recovered. Perhaps he was better at being President than campaigning for it.
Let’s have a look at how Obama is tracking against two very popular two-term Presidents: Reagan and Clinton.
Hmm. Obama not looking too bad here. Slightly more popular than Reagan at this point in the Presidency, slightly less popular than Clinton.
Clearly what counts for re-election is how popular a President is at day 1400, not day 400.
Final point of interest: Obama v George W. The Sep 11 attacks had an extraordinary impact on the popularity of the President (as well as Congress). Interesting that at the 2004 election, W was down to just over 50% approval, and deteriorated pretty consistently after that.
