Obama New Low of 38%: Presidential Approval Index Rating at –26

posted at 3:09 pm on August 23, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Elections ]   

A new Gallup poll finds President Obama with a new low job approval rating of 38%. At the rate at which his poll numbers are falling, he is on a pace to surpass the all-time low in the history of the presidency achieved by Harry S Truman, whose approval on February 9, 1952 was 22%.

The man with the second lowest approval rating is Obama’s nemesis and the man he has blamed repeatedly for his own failed presidency. That of course is George W. Bush, whose Gallup low of 25% was recorded on three separate dates in October of 2008.

Obama has lost 14 percentage points in the Gallup poll in the last three months. With the economy continuing to list and unemployment hovering around 9%, it is not difficult to imagine the slide continuing.

Equally discouraging for the president is his Rasmussen Approval Index rating, which is –26. The Approval Index rating is the difference between voters who Strongly Approve of the way the president is performing his role as president (currently 19%) and those who Strongly Disapprove (currently 45%).

Rasmussen Reports writes:

This is the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for President Obama. The previous low was –24 reached yesterday and also in September 2010. Additionally, the level of Strong Approval matches the lowest yet recorded. By way of comparison, President Bush had ratings near the end of his second term in the minus 30s.

Perhaps most sobering of all is that in spite of the president’s recent executive order declaring backdoor amnesty for many illegal aliens, his approval among Hispanics fell to an all-time low of 44% percent, according to Gallup polling data released on Monday.

That represents a decline of 41 points from the spring of 2009, when Obama’s approval among Hispanic Americans peaked at 85%.

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