For the first time in his administration, those who strongly disapprove of President Obama’s performance exceed those who strongly approve in the Rasmussen survey. Rasmussen calls this the “approval index.” As with any poll the numbers bounce around a bit from day to day, but the overall trend is obvious:
I think the steady growth in the number who strongly disapprove of Obama is the natural consequence of his consistent pursuit of very liberal policies. The opposition to those policies was always there, and it is increasingly expressed in the form of disapproval of Obama. Overall, voters approve of Obama by a 53-46 percent margin.
The main reason why Rasmussen finds lower support for Obama in these tracking polls than Gallup et al. is that Rasmussen’s is a likely voter poll. Beyond that, though, there are issues of competence in polling about which I’ll have more to say later today.
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