Two new national polls confirm that President Obama’s approval rating is rising. Among Republicans, Mitt Romney has a higher favorable rating than Jeb Bush. And 2014 was a rocky year for race relations. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, January 20, 2015.
NATIONAL POLLS FINDS OBAMA’S APPROVAL TICKING UP – Mark Murray: “More Americans are satisfied with the economy than at any point in the past 10 years, helping to increase President Barack Obama’s key job ratings, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released before his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night. The president’s overall job-approval number now stands at 46 percent, which is his highest rating since October 2013 during the government shutdown. (His approval rating was stuck around 40 percent for much of last year.) What’s more, 49 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy – the most since his first year in office. Still, nearly six-in-10 respondents believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, and a plurality think the country is in a state of decline.” [NBC]
…or more than ticking up – Scott Clement and Dan Balz: “President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday enjoying rising approval ratings that have been strengthened by rapidly improving perceptions of the economy and increased optimism about the overall direction of the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll….Obama’s overall approval rating now stands at 50 percent, the highest in a Post-ABC poll since spring 2013. His standing is nine points higher than in December and seven points higher than in October, just before Republicans captured control of the Senate, increased their House majority to its highest level in eight decades and recorded advances in the states. The Post-ABC survey puts the president’s approval rating slightly higher than some other recent public polls. But most have shown improvement since the November elections as the president has moved aggressively and unilaterally on issues such as immigration and climate change. The bigger factor helping to boost his standing is a series of economic indicators that have shown steadily improving conditions….A majority of Democrats are bullish; a bigger majority of Republicans are bearish. Independents are closer to Republicans than to Democrats in their assessment.” [WashPost]
How much does Obama’a approval mean for 2016? – Nate Cohn: “Only a handful of modern elections have not had an incumbent president on the ballot. In these contests, the president’s approval ratings are unsurprisingly less important than when a president is running for re-election. So Mr. Obama’s approval ratings will matter in 2016, but it is hard to say exactly how much. The balance of evidence suggests that the break-even point for the presidential party’s odds of victory is at or nearly 50 percent approval. If the only thing you knew about the 2016 election was Mr. Obama’s approval rating on Election Day, you might guess that the Democrats had a 37 percent chance of holding the White House with a 46 percent rating — rather than a 23 percent chance with a 41 percent rating. The difference between 41 and 46 might be worth between one and two percentage points to the Democratic candidate in 2016 — the difference between a close race and a modest but clear Republican victory.” [NYT]
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-Stan Greenberg (D) and Women’s Voices Women Vote plot a path back for Democrats. [DCorps]
-Drew Desilver summarizes contrasting attitudes of black and white America. [Pew]
-A powerful graphic captures how divided America was when Martin Luther King died.
[WashPost]
