WorldNetDaily

Poll: Obama approval at 46%, but AP says 54%

Rasmussen survey shows only 30% strongly support president

Posted: November 11, 2009
7:31 pm Eastern
By Joe Kovacs
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

When it comes to tracking President Obama's approval ratings, today's numbers vary greatly, and it all depends on the source.

For instance, an Associated Press poll has the commander in chief with a 54 percent overall approval mark, but Rasmussen Reports shows that figure 8 points lower at 46 percent, with only 30 percent strongly approving of Obama's performance.


President Obama's overall job approval rating now stands at 46 percent according Rasmussen Reports, eight points below the 54 percent mark according to AP.

Pollster.com shows the average of major polls have the approval rating at 50.7 percent, and disapproval at 44.6 percent.

One reason cited for the difference is the fact that Rasmussen bases its results on a sample of likely voters, instead of all adults often surveyed by other pollsters.

"President Obama's numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters," Rasmussen explains. "That's because some of the president's most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote."

Indeed, AP mentions its poll came from landline and cell-phone interviews with 1,006 adults nationwide, not necessarily likely voters.

Regarding the state of Obama's job performance, AP reporter Liz Sidoti stated: "People were more pessimistic about the direction of the country than in October. They disapproved of Obama's handling of the economy a bit more than before. And, perhaps most striking for this novice commander in chief, more people have lost confidence in Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan over the last month. Overall, there's a malaise about the state of the nation."

Sidoti actually buried the 54-percent approval rating nearly a dozen paragraphs into the story, and that has some analysts crying foul.

Eric Boehlert with the left-leaning Media Matters for America said, "[If] Obama's poll numbers had actually gone done, than that information would have been included very high in the AP dispatch; likely in the second or third paragraph. But because Obama's (healthy) poll approval rating remained unchanged Sidoti needed nine paragraphs to properly spin the polling data before conceding that, oh yeah, Obama still enjoys a robust job approval rating of 54 percent."

With unemployment now officially over 10 percent, most don't approve of how Obama is handling the economy in the AP survey, as just 46 percent give him a thumbs-up compared with 50 percent last month.

In other issues in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, 60 percent say the Fort Hood shootings should be investigated by the military as a terrorist act, while 27 percent prefer a criminal investigation by civilian authorities.

And on Veterans Day, 81 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the U.S. military, with 36 percent saying they had a close friend or relative who gave their life for America.

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