Monday, December 3, 2012
Below-Average Post-Election Approval Bounce for Obama
After President Obama’s reelection, his job approval rating went up 2 net points which is a small increase when the average increase is 6.25. In the last 16 presidential elections, Obama has had the smallest positive net gain. In these last 16 presidential elections, only three incumbents have had negative gains, Truman, Johnson, and Carter. Incumbents who have lost or aren’t running and their party lost have had larger job approval rating than before the election. This shows that many citizens are at least partly dissatisfied with President Obama. While he doesn’t have any more elections to worry about, the lack of support from citizens can decrease how well he will be able to pass his agenda over the next four years. Since he has already had problems passing items through Congress, this will only make it harder. Since he was reelected he will have a better chance at negotiating a fiscal cliff resolution, but he would be better off if he can get the majority of the country to support his ideas. In the last 4 elections, the incumbent has seen smaller bounces in their job approval rating, but it is too soon to see if it is a trend that will continue
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Interesting that presidents who LOST their bid for reelection have had higher approval ratings "bounces" than those who won! Sympathy?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I would think so. Either that or nostalgia.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I can see why people would think that Obama isn't doing as good a job as before. While the election did hijack pretty much ever form of media in the country, most of them were negative ads from one candidate or another. It probably cause people to view Obama with a more critical eye than they did before. I don't think that Obama is actually doing to poorly, of course. I still approve of him even if the country doesn't. In fact I think it would be easier if he didn't have a divided government to deal with like he is trying to now.
It is interesting to see that those who lose the reelection have higher approval ratings. And with the existence of a divided Congress making it harder for Obama to pass legislature through, I wonder how his approval ratings will effect such decisions.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't think that the presidential approval rating matters for Obama at this point. He no longer has to consider running for reelection. It befuddles me as to why Obama over the past few weeks, had taken a campaign style approach to sell his plan to avert the fiscal crisis to the public, rather than their representatives in Washington. While yes, as a public official, you are always beholden to the wishes of the American people, regardless of the outcome of the fiscal cliff (whether we go over or get a compromise), virtually no one will be happy with the outcome, because everyone stands to lose. So no one is going to be happy, but the important thing is that something gets done. Federal spending as is results in $1+ trillion deficits every year, and that money has to come from somewhere...
ReplyDeleteI agree with Grace that Obama no longer needs to worry about his approval rating. I hope he will use this to his advantage and make bold decisions that are good for our country. I wonder if his lower-than-usual bounce in ratings has anything to do with the fiscal cliff.
ReplyDeleteI doubt Obama needs to pay much attention to his approval ration; he has been reelected and now he can focus even moreso on his specific ideas, because what does he have to lose? This is his last term. Now I hope that he does take into account the American people's opinions and try to keep them reasonably informed, but now he should focus on representatives and dealing with this fiscal crisis the two parties are struggling to solve.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, approval ratings do not matter as much for Barack Obama. He won his second election and has no more elections to worry about. He should use this time to make bold moves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone has said. He doesn't need to worry about his approval rations because he has already won his second and last term election. I agree with what Amanda said about him making a bold move because he has nothing to really lose because its his last term.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Amanda. If Obama really is going to do something to enhance our country during his second term, now is the optimal time for him to do so. The only thing that he has to worry about is impeachment, but I don't think he's that dumb so.
ReplyDeleteThe article does state that the margin of change of approval rates before and after an election has narrowed over the past four elections. Although it is too soon to consider this a trend, the existence of a trend is still possible. Only after more elections occur can it be shown statistically whether or not Obama's poor approval rate was due to a trend, not a denunciation against him specifically.
ReplyDeleteOn Graces point of Obama trying to campaign to the people as opposed to the members of Congress I believe this can be attributed to the divided nature of congress and the fact that there is a greater possibility of Obama indirectly gaining votes for his plan than doing it directly.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with the fact that the President does not need to worry about what everyone else thinks, it is curious to think that incumbents who lost have had high approval ratings. Is it sympathy (like Mr. Danson said) or is it people not knowing what they're missing until its gone?
ReplyDeleteWhile it's crazy that Obama's approval rating is lower than losing candidates, he doesn't really need to focus on that. Hopefully he disregards it and is able to make some much-needed action on issues such as the fiscal cliff.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the president's approval rating is a big deal, as most have said before me. He doesn't have to worry about re-election, so he will more than likely be able to do more things that he wasn't able to before. Also, I can't imagine that it's a big deal that his approval rating didn't go up much when he just go re-elected.. Does he really care?
ReplyDeleteIt appears as if there will be very little change in the upcoming 4 years and this supports that theory that Obama doesn't have the support he wants. Congress is still split so little will be accomplished to begin with but Obama doesn't want to leave office with the idea in Americans' minds that "he was an awful president." If the majority of the population agrees with something on his agenda, then that should not be pushed through
ReplyDeleteCongress.
As many have pointed out, Obama does not have to worry about his approval rate anymore. I would hope that our president would have a positive rating because if not we would definitely have to rethink what is going on. Hopefully the rating will increase and move closer to the average rate of increase. Only time will tell.
ReplyDelete