Approval Rating

New figures from Gallup place President Obama's reelection bid in a precarious gray zone between the one-term exit of presidents like George H.W. Bush, and successful second-term victories like those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Combining Obama's job approval rating with several evaluations of public sentiment on the economy, Gallup's indicators show that the president is performing better than he was just a year ago, but his numbers are nonetheless lackluster compared with those of his predecessors.

New figures from Gallup place President Obama's reelection bid in a precarious gray zone between the one-term exit of presidents like George H.W. Bush, and successful second-term victories like those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Combining Obama's job approval rating with several evaluations of public sentiment on the economy, Gallup's indicators show that the president is performing better than he was just a year ago, but his numbers are nonetheless lackluster compared with those of his predecessors.

President Obama has never been wildly popular in West Virginia, but Tuesday's Democratic primary marked the state's sharpest rejection of the president yet. A Texas prisoner, listed as Inmate No. 11593-051, received 69,766 votes, a surprising 41% of the total, showing that many West Virginians would vote for just about anyone other than Obama, regardless of their status as a felon. Obama still won the primary, with 59% of the vote. Keith Judd, the prisoner in question, is currently serving a 17½-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana after being sentenced for extortion in an altercation with the University of New Mexico.

President Obama has never been wildly popular in West Virginia, but Tuesday's Democratic primary marked the state's sharpest rejection of the president yet. A Texas prisoner, listed as Inmate No. 11593-051, received 69,766 votes, a surprising 41% of the total, showing that many West Virginians would vote for just about anyone other than Obama, regardless of their status as a felon. Obama still won the primary, with 59% of the vote. Keith Judd, the prisoner in question, is currently serving a 17½-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana after being sentenced for extortion in an altercation with the University of New Mexico.

Don't call it a comeback; he's still in perilous terrain for an incumbent. But President Obama's job approval rating is showing remarkable consistency of late after reaching an all time low. According to the Gallup daily tracking poll, Obama's rating now stands at 43%, where it's rested seven of the last nine days. His approval rating has been at or above 40% for 13 straight days now, equaling the longest such stretch since he first slipped below 40% in mid-August. Any incumbent president who is polling below 50% is thought to be vulnerable in a reelection year, and the White House would certainly like to see his numbers higher.

In pushing for his jobs program, President Obama has put Congress right in the crosshairs, urging voters to pressure their lawmakers into acting quickly to pass the administration's package. According to a recent Gallup poll, the president may have found an easy target since Congress continues to enjoy exceptionally low approval ratings, far worse than Obama's own. Congressional job approval is now 15%, up slightly from the record-tying low of 13% recorded in August, Gallup reported this week.

President Obama's job approval rating declined in all but three states in 2011, with some of the steepest declines coming in likely battlegrounds he must win this fall to claim a second term. New state-by-state data released by Gallup on Tuesday (chart below) shows that a majority of respondents approved of the president's performance in only 10 states plus the District of Columbia, down from 13 a year earlier. Meanwhile the number of states where his approval rating was below 40% doubled in 2011, from 10 to 20. That list now includes New Hampshire, where his approval rating was 38.7% -- the lowest score in any of the states he carried in 2008.

President Obama's approval rating has taken a hit in a new poll that shows a growing frustration with the president's handling of the economy. The Washington Post/ABC poll found that 46% of people approve of the Obama's job performance, while 50% disapprove. That's a reversal of the president's ratings just last month, when his approval hit 50% for the first time in that survey in nearly a year.  The quick drop coincides with a spike in gas prices and an increase in criticism from Obama's Republican rivals on the issue, even as the economy has shown noticeable signs of growth.

George W. Bush is proving that absence, indeed, makes the heart grow fonder. According to a Gallup poll released Monday, the most recent ex-president has an approval rating of 47%, considerably higher than when he left office. In his first outing in the poll's ranking of former chief executives, Bush is still near the bottom, handily defeating perennial basement dweller Richard M. Nixon, forced to quit office in disgrace. But when compared with approval polls while he was in office, he's rising with a bullet.

President Obama is enjoying a surge in public approval as he marks the midpoint of his first term, an uptick that follows a productive lame-duck congressional session and his well-received speech on the shooting tragedy in Tucson. The same polling shows that although new Speaker of the House John Boehner is getting favorable reviews early on, Americans don't expect that much from the new Congress. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey released Wednesday night showed Obama's job-approval rating at 53%, an eight-point jump from mid-December and his highest rating since July 2009.

A new poll finds a clear preference for President Obama over Mitt Romney among younger voters, a key sector of his winning coalition in 2008. But as the president embarks on a three-state tour of college campuses to press Congress to act to preserve low interest rates on student loans, there were indications that enthusiasm was sharply down among members of the so-called millennial generation, with the sagging economy the main factor. The Harvard University Institute of Politics survey of voters ages 18 to 29 showed Obama leading Mitt Romney 43% to 26%, up from the 37% to 26% head-to-head matchup in December.

When Tim Cook took over the helm at Apple Inc. in August, many wondered how he would set himself apart from his predecessor, the formidable Steve Jobs. But a new study that ranks Cook as the country's top-rated chief executive suggests that he's doing just fine. Cook landed a 97% approval rating from employees, according to careers website Glassdoor -- the same rating Jobs had when he stepped down from the CEO post. In his short tenure, Cook has unveiled the new iPad and the iPhone 4S and has instituted a new quarterly dividend for shareholders.

President Obama's approval rating has taken a hit in a new poll that shows a growing frustration with the president's handling of the economy. The Washington Post/ABC poll found that 46% of people approve of the Obama's job performance, while 50% disapprove. That's a reversal of the president's ratings just last month, when his approval hit 50% for the first time in that survey in nearly a year.  The quick drop coincides with a spike in gas prices and an increase in criticism from Obama's Republican rivals on the issue, even as the economy has shown noticeable signs of growth.

President Obama's job approval rating declined in all but three states in 2011, with some of the steepest declines coming in likely battlegrounds he must win this fall to claim a second term. New state-by-state data released by Gallup on Tuesday (chart below) shows that a majority of respondents approved of the president's performance in only 10 states plus the District of Columbia, down from 13 a year earlier. Meanwhile the number of states where his approval rating was below 40% doubled in 2011, from 10 to 20. That list now includes New Hampshire, where his approval rating was 38.7% -- the lowest score in any of the states he carried in 2008.

President Obama's success in getting congressional Republicans to renew a payroll tax cut flowed from a strategy the White House has employed since the summer: Bypass Congress and marshal the political power of middle-class voters fed up with Washington gridlock. The standoff with House Republican leaders formally ended Friday, when Obama signed a bill that extends for two months a Social Security tax cut for employees and unemployment insurance benefits that had been jeopardized by a weeklong impasse.

Mitt Romney scored the endorsement of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley Friday as he tries to improve his standing in that state in advance of next month's primary. Haley is the tea-party affiliated, Indian American governor swept into office last year as part of the GOP electoral tide and is considered a rising star in the party. Should Romney capture the nomination, it's likely that Haley's name will be part of the vice presidential conversation. Haley made the announcement on Fox News Channel on Friday.

  After achieving a modest rebound in his approval rating this fall, President Obama is headed for a high-profile fight with Republicans over how best to preserve a tax break for American workers. This time, White House aides insist, the president has the upper hand. During the late summer, as the debt ceiling debate dragged on, Obama was repeatedly thwarted by congressional Republicans and his approval rating dropped below 40% in some polls. Since then, as he kept a distance from Congress, his slide has halted and his rating has edged up to the mid-40s.

The influence of the tea party movement appears to be on the wane - even in congressional districts that elected tea party candidates last year, according to a new survey. The report from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released Tuesday showed support for the tea party dropping nationwide, with more Americans viewing the movement unfavorably. The view of the Republican Party in the 60 districts represented by members of the House Tea Party Caucus has also suffered.