Diving into the RCP presidential job approval for Trump

I'm not a huge fan of much of the polling that goes in terms of job approval. During the run-up to the election I dissected a lot of polling that felt suspect to me.  I argued that the election was not going to be a Hillary Clinton blowout and that it was going to be close, because there was a lot of skewness embedded in the polling results.  I wasn't confident in my opinion because the poll internals were not always available.  But I was right.

So, here we go again. A 2018 projection based on what the polls say right now.

Full disclosure, I used to follow president Obama's job approval ratings from Rasmussen Reports very regularly during his first term, but heading into his second term, I started questioning the polling, many of which had him winning re-election but many of which had him losing to Mitt Romney. That's when my trust in the polls started to falter - 2012.

Where the presidential job approval from RealClearPolitics is interesting now though, is a different matter.  Yes, the polls are mostly done on registered voters or all adults rather than likely voters (where he performs better, albeit still underwater). But the site allows for an approval rating on the economy versus on foreign policy, versus overall.  That caught my attention today.

Overall, the averaged polls by RCP show president Trump's job approval is underwater by 17 points, at roughly 40%. The skewness aside, let's assume that's the baseline.  You'd expected the drill downs on the issues of foreign policy and the economy to reflect that level and display some correlation to that number.

Foreign policy does reflect that. President Trump is almost 19 points underwater on foreign policy job approval at ~38% approval.  ISIS has been decimated but there are a number of factors that might explain that - liberals virulently opposed to the Jerusalem decision or improved illegal immigration effectiveness.  But Iran is a looming problem and North Korea is an existential threat viewed as a Trump problem as it is flaring up on his watch and not his ineffectual predecessor's.  And there is a media mob mentality on the Russia issue.  So while less than reflective of reality, the foreign policy approval might be skewed in the polls, but it's still feasible that there is validity in those numbers (to a degree).

Here's the puzzling piece.  President Trump is underwater in job approval on the economy.  But just barely.  Despite the hysterical claims that the president is blowing up the economy, things are actually pretty good.  This before the tax cuts are being seen on people's take home pay.  The president is only 2.5 points underwater at this point.

That portends a sound performance in 2018 in the midterms if the economy does as well as expected.  The president will move into positive territory on job approval re: the economy.  You'd expect that to move the dial overall as well over the course of 2018.  Yet there's an odd finding in this - why is the president's job approval seemingly tied more closely to foreign policy than it is to the economy? After nearly a decade of  an anemic economy, you'd think "It's the economy stupid." would never be more apropos.

Either the polls are flawed or skewed, or there's a Bradley Effect at play that's under-counting president trump's support.  Or perhaps the economy has been de-coupled from presidential approval.  Perhaps there's an overriding concern about a lack of presidential demeanor that overshadows the good he has done on the economy.  I doubt that, or at least that it's so strong as to drag a -2% to a -17%.  But that doesn't pass the smell test.  Something is clearly off on these polls.

Polls still fudge-y on president Trump

Make no mistake, president Trump is still polling underwater, but what's remarkable is how little underwater he is given the deluge over the past year plus of negative stories that the media continues to purvey about him regardless of substance.  The unspoken secret however is that these polls mean zero to the president, zero to his supporters and zero to his re-election chances as well as nearly zero to the Republican controlled congress.

Nevertheless it's all worth a brief debunking.  Here's what the latest RealClearPolitics polling average of job approval for the president looks like.

In the recent average there are a total of 12 polls. Gallup (having the president at -17%), Reuters (-18%), CNN (-19%), CNBC (-14%) and CBS News (-20%) all are polling all adults.  That's been proven to be unreliable with respect to electoral results.  They are often unreliably skewed as well.  For example take CNN's poll. On page 6 it suggest 37% of Democrats approve of the president's job.  In a poll of 1037 respondents and a confidence interval of +/- 3.5%, and the standard 95% confidence level, reverse engineering the statistics, it means the sample contained 429 Democrats. That's a poll that contains 41.4% Democrats.  Similarly the poll contained 235 Independents (22.6% of those polled), leaving 373 Republicans (36% of the polled population).

While Democrats tend to be more numerous a +5.4% skew towards Democrats and a much larger proportion of Independents than a lot of historical polls.  The latter point could be a real variance from the past but the skewness of the poll is still highly questionable. [If you are interested in reverse engineering the polls minus all the stats, there's a good basic calculator here.]

Much of the remaining polling - in fact all but Rasmussen - look at registered voters.  It's historically more reliable but based on that sort of polling, president Obama would not have won re-election in 2012.  The merits of each of those polls require their own individual assessments, something I'm not prepared to do here but it is worth noting that one pollster is a Democrat firm, and as I've pointed previously, Marist polling has issues (something the election results bore out).  While everyone is now saying most all of the polling in 2016 was correct within the margin of error nationally, there were very few polls that actually had Donald Trump ahead state-by-state in the electoral college.  Yet that's exactly what happened. Issues with polling is nothing new.

Putting stock in the polls of the day is a dangerous and misleading game.  All that said, there is a continuity of evidence when even Rasmussen has president Trump at -9%. Rasmussen was so off in 2012 that in 2016 I tended to disregard it.  Nevertheless Rasmussen has Trump much better off than his predecessor was for much of his first term.  If I were president Trump I would not be discouraged by the polls.  It still really is about getting things he's promised, actually done.

Podesta joining Obama carries implications beyond Obama

John Podesta, former Clinton Chief of Staff (1998-2001) is joining team Obama and it is purely as a result of the presidents abysmal and dropping job approval ratings.  It's a political move through and through.  Expect Podesta to clean house with White House staff, or at least appear to clean house in order to put some support and to the hopes of Democrats, a floor under Obama's flagging job approval ratings.  Whether it works or not remains to be seen, although for it to make a difference, it would have probably had to have happened a long time ago.  The damage is probably irreparable by now.  The real implications however, lie elsewhere - many of them, with Clinton.

Expect to not see this.  But it will still be there.

Firstly, a lot of  supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline project initially viewed Podesta's onboarding as a death knell for the project.  They were right to worry.  Although news came out that he will recuse himself from Keystone XL discussions, it isn't like he won't discuss the matter with Obama in private.  It still portends bad news for the pipeline's supporters.  There isn't really going to be a firewall between him and Obama on the pipeline.

It also should retroactively raise an eyebrow for those who supported Bill Clinton's presidency if they care at all about jobs and his legacy as the supposed economic wunderkind (no, you can thank the Republican wave of 1994 for the economic resurgence during the Clinton presidency).  If Podesta does and did value vague, half-truth climate histrionics over jobs and economic prosperity, then what does that say about him being part of Bill Clinton's inner circle?  It means that Clinton may very well have been on the same page, despite being able to read the tea leaves on public sentiment about economic growth and prosperity post-1994.

Another Clinton angle is that Podesta would certainly be a member of a Hillary Clinton presidency and getting Podesta in there can serve as an ear and a heads-up to Clinton about decisioning coming out of the White House.  She'll be better prepared to comment on presidential items as she will have advanced notice and time to prepare.  Additionally, Podesta "cleaning house" might be designed to serve as window dressing from Obama's perspective, it could also help clear the way to put Clintonian elements in key positions for her coming presidency.  Should she win, she could hit the ground running so to speak with her agenda.

Frankly I'm much more worried about the Clinton implications than the Obama implications of Podesta coming on board with the White House.

Obama's approval rating doesn't matter.

According to the latest round of Gallup Dailies on Obama's Job Approval, the president has climbed back up to the "magical" 40% approval mark.  In other words, it's still terrible.  In fact if you look at the Gallup Obama job approval numbers since election day 2012, they have almost reversed from an approve/disapprove of  52/44 then to 40/53 now.  The thing is, the numbers don't matter.  Obama doesn't have to run for re-election again. He's already won his two terms.  He'll have another 2+ years to inflict his brand of progressivist agenda on the nation, provided the Obamacare train wreck doesn't negate that possibility  (and it just might).

But 5 years in, we know this president and like bad news, reality does not penetrate the his firewall. His agenda has primacy, always.  Regardless of the approval rating being terrible,  mediocre or great, he will pursue and push his agenda.  Regardless of the success or failure of his attempts,  he will pursue his agenda. Regardless of the damage to the nation,  his party or the people he will pursue his agenda.

That's why the polls do not matter. They change nothing, even though now they probably should.

Is it bitter partisanship to dislike Obama personally?

Maybe it’s because I’m not evolved, but I dislike the president personally. I think I have good reason for that, but maybe I’m wrong. I’m not racist. I’m not a birther or a kook. I’m not looking to see him out of office by any means other than through an Electoral College victory by his opponent (the less-than-adorable Mitt Romney). I don’t wish him any ill or harm. But I don’t like Barack Obama personally and I think I have some pretty good reasons for that.

Rasmussen's disturbing trends

Rasmussen polls typically look at likely voters.  I've also noticed that the trends identified there seem to be a week or two ahead of Gallup and others in trending.  So some of Rasmussen's latest polling results pose reasons for conservatives to be concerned.

After months of trailing, Obama is once again ahead of the generic Republican candidate.  Of course that's a meaningless poll in and of itself.  there won't be a generic Republican on the GOP ticket.  It will be someone that the public gets to know.  But the trend is what's worrisome.  It means Obama has regained some traction.

That idea is reinforced in the Rasmussen approval index and overall job approval which show Obama trending upwards too.

Lastly, the generic congressional ballot from Rasmussen has the Democrats tied with the GOP for the first time in nearly two and a half years.

Alone, these could be regarded as statistical noise, taken together it might portend a trend.

Obama is twice the man Bush was!

President Obama is twice the man President Bush was - sorta.  Consider the following statistics.

Obama Approval Index - Why It's Not Good News

Conservatives looking for momentum in the fight to unseat Democrats in November, might be facing some trouble.  Rasmussen's daily Presidential index is out and the graphs don't look good.  Previous bounces for the President have looked quite ephemeral.  The State of the Union speech bounce lasted less time than it takes to finish a Starbucks Venti. But this bounce looks like it might have a bit more staying power. It's not time to panic just yet, but it might be time for some concern.

Democrats Could Pull Off A Home Run

It doesn't make me happy to think about this possibility. In fact it makes me aggravated to even think someone would be thinking like this. But the audacity of Democrat machinations have turned me more cynical than I used to be.

The point - Democrats could possibly keep Obama's promise to broadcast the backroom dealings on C-span, to make the secret deals, all the while boosting Obama's approval ratings. Here's how.

If the Democrats go ahead and make the secret deals they need to make and then bring the resulting bill to the President, he could veto the bill saying there was too much secrecy in the process.

The Democrats could then allow C-span in and re-work the process, towards the bill they already passed - or something close enough to it (perhaps their real goal for the bill, the first being a misdirection offering).

They have the votes to pass whatever they want. When push came to shove, everyone, even Lieberman fell in line. So once they get the publicly viewed 'deliberations' version of the bill ironed out, they can re-send the bill to the President for signing.

He'll sign it and look like an all around hero. It may mean a large number of Democrats falling on their swords. It may still mean losses, or it might turn into a Democrat popularity mini-rally.

I shudder at the thought. I hope I'm wrong about the outcome and the existence of such a plan. It's a cynical view. But I think the cynicism is warranted, given the nature of the modern Democratic party.  A home run?  Could be a grand slam - it might even minimize their losses this November. I really hope I'm wrong.

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

According to Rasmussen's Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, Barack Obama's Presidential Approval Index (those who strongly approve minus those who strongly oppose of the President's job) is at a staggering -14.  His overall approval is at 47%.

Despite that, and despite the fact there are more people who who oppose health care reform than support it, it still might just happen.  Go figure.

Rasmussen's latest Presidential tracking poll

As of the latest Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll (2 minutes ago as of the start of the writing of this post), the President's job approval ratings bump from his speech to a joint session of Congress appears dead. 

The approval index, which had closed the gap to -3 (3% more strangly disapproved than strongly approved) has widened back to -8.  Rasmussen has indicated that it seems to serve as a leading indicator of overall approval.  While it's more likely intended to measure depth of support or opposition, it does seem to trend ahead of the overall job approval.  Looking at his graphing of the Index, it appears that since late July the President's numbers have levelled out at roughly 30% strong approval, and 40% strong disapproval.  I intend to test that theory with another theoretical tool very soon.

Turning to his overall job approval, it's again, down from the speech 2 weeks ago when it had climbed back above 50%.  Guess what it's back below - with 49% approval and 50% disapproval.  I'd like to look at these numbers again in the near future to see if the trend has stalled.  The trend looks less stalled than the Job Approval Index, and it's a different measure - but if the Index is the leading indicator then in the near future we might see a leveling out of those Approval numbers as well. 

While that may be disappointing news for conservatives, there is a silver lining.   Two silver linings in fact.  Firstly, the speechifying by the President seems to have lost it's momentum-changing or momentum-building effects it had in 2008.  Every speech provides a bump, and the seemingly temporary effect it now has means it cannot be a game changer in 2010.  The second silver lining is less tangible.  Just because the President's rating slide MIGHT stop or slow, that supposes that there are no new game changing events coming into play.  This is the real world though and it's been duly noted that Team Obama is full of not ready for prime time players.  There will be gaffes.  There will be bad decisions.  There will be unexpected crisis.  And there will be further deterioration of some of the economic indicators like the unemployment rate.

Indeed the current delay in the slide may end up being a high point of the President's job approval rating over his term.

Danger: Train wreck in progress

Do you hear that? It's a sound of a train wreck in progress.

After falling flat on their face over the health care issue, and losing considerable job approval ratings in the process, the Obama administration brand marketing wizards have decided that it might be a good idea to divert attention from the carnage in order to repair the Obama brand.

That's not a bad idea. In fact, given the drubbing their agenda has taken at the hands of the Town Hall protesters (or more accurately hard questioners), a diversion might just stem the flow of ratings points away from the President. 

That's not the problem.  The problem is what they did to divert the public's attention.   Keep in mind that as a very leftward leaning President, Obama has his left ear closer to the ground than his right ear.  Consequently he's more likely to hear feedback, both positive and negative, from the far left than from the right.  Town hall protesters are deemed un-American, but complaints from his base are taken seriously.

And what pray-tell is his base unsettled over?  Or rather, going crazy over? The possiblility of the single-payer option  the government-paid option being taken off the table by the administration.  The comments by Sebelius that government as a "competitive" provider is not mandatory to reform, drew far left ire.  Big time.  And the Obama administration heard it.  They were probably prepared to have points siphoned off from the conservatives they felt were willing to give him a chance.  They may have even been prepared to lose some appeal to moderates (though not all).  But to start bleeding support from all sides?  That's the making of a train wreck.

The administration, when confronted with a challenge go back to the playbook.  Early on it was 'blame Bush'.  And up until recently it has been trotting out the President to speak to the press, yet again.  They probably went to the well too often, too soon with that ploy because while it created spikes in approval ratings in the past, it has not stemmed the general tide of downward sloping approval ratings.  They had to try something different.

With their ear to the left side of the ground, they remember what got them elected in the first place.  Their grassroots support had a huge anti-war component to it.  Obama, having made some initial traction with his support base on Gitmo and on ending Iraq, decided to beef up Afghanistan.  It plaed well to the middle because it supported his sales pitch that it was supposed to be about Bin Laden, not Iraq.  The argument probably was tolerated by the far left as a necesary evil to oust the Republicans and to get a Democrat into the White house.  But that anti-war goodwill started getting eaten up with Afghanistan and the apparent cave in on health care may have hastened the President's dilemna.

So going back to the well, and shoring up the liberal support probably seemed like a good idea.  What worked really well for them were the 'impeach Bush' and 'try the war criminals' memes.  So Eric Holder re-ignites the prosecute the CIA fires.  Let's put some people in jail.  This from the same left who felt that protests against Bush would cause Marshall Law to be imposed and every protester would be imprisoned and elections cancelled forever with Bush as the perma-President.  Yes, the hypocrisy is almost comical; they want to prosecute people who were trying to protect the country from an actual foe, whereas they were imagining a foe of freedom in Bush and believed they were going to be prosecuted for it.

The idea of prosecuting CIA personnel for trying to defend the country is assinine.  So bad in fact that there are rumors that liberal Leon Panetta, he of the no-intelligence-experience-but-now-heading-the-CIA fame gets it.  Apparently there were rumors he threatened to quit over it.  If he gets it, why doesn't Holder?  And does Holder have free rein here?  Has Obama lost control of his team?  That would certainly lead to a train wreck.

Alternately, if the White house is behind this agenda, then they have misjudged the American people.  This comes across as a vendetta and worse, as putting the nation's safety at risk by tying the hands of the covert defenders in order to score political points.  If that perception takes hold, you can count on another 10 points dropping off the President's job approval.  Yep, for them, that's a train wreck too.

The last possibility is that since Place Holder is leading this charge, and Obama and Holder have pulled this Alphonse and Gaston routine before, it's all contrived.  Maybe the script calls for Obama once agains to sweep in and say, we're not going to proceed with this - we have to look forward not backwards.  With that approach they temporarily appease the far left with the thinking that CIA folks are going to jail.  They can reclaim the middle ground with Obama saying that Holder's efforts are counter-productive and Obama is more bi-partisan and forward looking.  Of course the left might be enraged again, but if he frames it as saying "I'm above this petty stuff, trust me", maybe they'll buy it for a while.  By buying himself time, perhaps he can still sneak through health care 'reform' (shouldn't that be 'deform') in some shape.  That will appeal to his base partially.  It might keep them content.  And it might buy him time for Democrats in 2010 with the same old tired line that "this will take time to make a difference, so trust us".  Is there a train wreck in there too?  Absolutely - for that ploy to work in Obama's favor, every calculation described above has to go his way.  What could possibly go wrong?

For starters, the conservative giant has been awakened.  People in middle America won't sit still for CIA personnel being charged with crimes.  It might play well in Tehran, but in Atlanta? No way.  People intrinsically understand that in the broader world, you sometimes have to play outside the box in order to protect the Americans.

Secondly, who is to say the far left won't be completely disillusioned if Obama calls off Holder?  And who is to say Panetta won' actually quit?  That damages the President's credibility on both vetting (yet again) and on believability over whether CIA prosecutions make any kind of sense to even entertain.  And if Obama is losing the middle ground rapidly, this also starts to look a lot like waffling on the issue. Even if Holder is under control, it starts to look like he may be a loose cannon. That harms his visionary image and reinforces the lack-of-experience image.

There's just too many what-ifs for raising this issue now to be considered a good idea.  This is certainly a train wreck that's under way.  Stay out of the way of the debris that's going to fly everywhere.  On the other hand, it's in America's best interest for the Obama train to come to a screeching halt.  And if protests help hasten that impact, they need to keep going - even if it means contributing to a train wreck, because the alternative to an Obama train wreck, is an American train wreck.

Checking the accuracy of my predictions

Part of what makes things in this world work requires having some Faith in Numbers. Back in June I ran some numbers on Rasmussen's Presidential job approval daily tracking. I was skeptical of my own expectations. After all at the beginning of the year I predicted unemployment would exceed 8.8%, but I also got a few things wrong.

Back on June 25th, I came up with the following two observations;

1. Obama's strong approval would slip below his strong disapproval numbers by July.
2. Overall, his disapproval numbers would slip below his approval numbers by September.

It turns out that while there was a single Presidential Index in the negatives in June, it's likely attributable to a bit of statistical noise. It was isolated but it was part of the bigger trend. However, the Strongly Disapprove numbers dipped below the Strongly Approve on June 30th and has stayed there ever since. While I expected that to happen, I really had trouble believing my own forecast. I thought it would take longer, but it was correct.

On the other account, his overall approval below disapproval by September, the numbers on Rasmussen are hovering around 50% and have dipped below there a couple of times. It's early August. Things change, but the trending looks like it's going exactly as predicted.

Obama approval ratings fire sale

From Rasmussen, this:

I just want to say 'woo hoo!' but it doesn't mean much if the President is still getting his way on legislation. That means that this information should provide a rallying point for those who oppose his agenda to ramp up their opposition efforts to his agenda.

If not, it represents nothing more than a wasted opportunity.

Is Gallup the Outlier Poll?

Scanning through the polling on Obama job approval, there's some interesting results;

• Rasmussen - March 24 - 56% Approval, 43% Disapproval
• Zogby - according to the Boston Herald, Zogby will release a poll today showing results at or near 50/50 for approval/disapproval
• Quinnipiac
• American Research Group - March 20 - 56% Approval 37% Disapproval (on economy it's 49/44)
• CNN and CBS both have Obama's approval in the low 60's but the results are 8-10 days old

And what does Gallup currently show? Obama's approval at 65% and his disapproval 26%. Gallup's results, unlike CBS or CNN's are within the last 2 days. And unlike CNN or CBS, you'd expect Gallup to be impartial. But they've consistently shown better results for President Obama than Rasmussen, ARG and other polls. Why the discrepancy?

The difference with Rasmussen is likely explainable by the target of the polls. Rasmussen polls likely voters and Gallup is polling adults. The latter is less accurate come election time, but arguably a better indicator of the mood of the nation. Still, it appears the Gallup numbers are skewed in favor of President Obama.

There is in recent polls a definite slide in support and an even more definite growth in disapproval of the President. This has come predominantly, as you'd expect from Republicans and disaffected independents. While Gallup has shown a slide from nearly 70% approval to the mid-60's, the polling has remained flat since early February. This is at odds with other major polls.

Is Gallup polling incorrectly, are they biased, are their results just an outlier versus other polls? No one can be certain as to which, but the fact is that their results are indeed different from others. As a result of that, their polling should be taken with a grain or two of salt.