NYT
Barack Obama got some good news to start his new year: his Gallup approval rating ticked up to 50 percent yesterday, against 42 percent disapproval. That’s the first time it has been at the 50 percent threshold since early June.
Mr. Obama had some successes to point to in December, like the accomplishments of the lame-duck session of Congress, and some moderately encouraging economic numbers.
Still, it’s unclear whether the movement is real or reflects statistical noise; most polls still have Mr. Obama slightly below 50 percent. And it probably isn’t worth going through very much effort to find out, provided that our focus is on 2012.
Historically, there has been almost no relationship between a President’s approval rating following the midterms and how he eventually fared at the next presidential election. I’ve alluded to this in the past, but the data illustrate the point a little bit more forcefully.
Below are the Gallup approval ratings at a comparable point in time — early January just after the midterms — for the 11 prior incumbent presidents who stood for election (not re-election, technically speaking, in cases like Gerald Ford). The chart also shows what percentage of the vote the president ultimately received, and by what margin he won or lost by, once the election took place.
(More here.)
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