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Poll: Obama's approval rating stable; Americans want compromise
President Obama waves at the end of an event honoring the 2011 Baseball World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals, Jan. 17, 2012 in the East Room of the White House.
/ Getty
CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.
President Obama's overall approval rating now stands at 47 percent, according to a new CBS News/New York Times Poll, showing little change in the country's opinion of its chief executive.
Of those surveyed for the poll between January 12 and January 17, 45 percent said they disapprove of the job he is doing. Aside from an uptick after the killing of Osama bin Laden last spring, the president's approval rating has held fairly steady, at just below 50 percent, for much of the last year and a half.
Mr. Obama's approval rating is highly subject to partisanship, with 78 percent of Democrats voicing approval while an overwhelming 83 percent of Republicans disapprove. Independents are more divided, with 47 percent saying they disapprove and 45 percent saying they approve.
However, the poll does suggest Americans are happier with Mr. Obama's attempts to reach across the aisle and work with his political opponents. Most - six in 10 - said the president is trying to work with Republicans in Congress in order to get things done, and many say that effort is not reciprocated.
Only 27 percent of those surveyed said they thought Republicans in Congress are trying to work with President Obama.
That compromise is what Americans seem to crave most - 85 percent said they want to see both Democrats and Republicans work together and even compromise some of their positions in order to get things done, including those of all partisan stripes.
This poll was conducted by telephone from January 12-17, 2012 among 1,154 adults nationwide. 1,021 interviews were conducted with registered voters and 340 with voters who said they plan to vote in a Republican primary. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The margin of error for the sample of registered voters could be plus or minus three points and five points for the sample of Republican primary voters. The error for subgroups may be higher. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.
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WaPo/ABC ends sample transparency in national polling
posted at 9:50 am on February 6, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
The Washington Post and ABC News has a new national poll out today. It purports to show that Barack Obama has a 50% approval rating and that he would beat Mitt Romney in a head-to-head matchup. And heck, that might even be true, except for a couple of problems. First, this is a poll of general population adults rather than registered or likely voters, so it's not even a proper polling type for the predictive outcome they claim.
More importantly, though, the poll series has dropped its reporting of partisan identification within their samples. It's the second time that the poll has not included the D/R/I split in its sample report, and now it looks as though this will be policy from this point forward. Since this is a poll series that has handed double-digit partisan advantages to Democrats in the past (for instance, this poll from April 2011 where the sample only had 22% Republicans), it's not enough to just hear "trust us" on sample integrity from the Washington Post or ABC.
One cannot determine whether Obama's improvement in this series is a result of the State of the Union speech, as Dan Balz and Jon Cohen suggest, or whether it's due to shifting the sample to favor Democrats more so than in previous samples. The same is true for the Post's report that Obama "for the first time has a clear edge" over Romney head-to-head. One would need a poll of registered or likely voters to actually make that claim (one has to register to cast a vote, after all), and one would need to see the difference in partisan splits between this and other surveys in the series to determine whether the movement actually exists or got manufactured by the pollster.
Essentially, the overall poll is worthless, and given the track record of this poll series, it's easy to assume that the reason that the Post has ended its sample transparency is because they have something to hide.
Among the Republicans and independents the Post did survey, Romney has a big lead over the rest of the field, 39/23 over Gingrich, with Santorum coming in at 16% and Paul at 15%. Since we don't know the mix between Republicans and independents here, either, and we're still dealing with adults in the middle of the primaries when the likely voter model should be used, this is also a worthless result.
Update: The description in their news reports show 879 registered voters as a subsample. However, their sample report only mentions the 1,000 adults of the overall sample, from which Obama's 50% approval rating is taken, as well as their approval rating for the GOP rhetoric, which is prominently mentioned in the news report. They do, however, report on both general population and registered voters for the Obama-Romney head-to-head — but again without any indication of the sample composition at all.
And once again, why anyone is polling adults in the middle of an ongoing primary is a complete mystery. That should be likely voters.
Time to also stop another Top 1% scam (the illegitimate "Supreme" Court Citizens United by Occupying the Courts tomorrow. Complete list of events here:
http://movetoamend.org/occupythecourts
But the 99% are really the ones with the power and we will be able to take our country back as we organize further and more and more people realize their power over the greedy, uncaring rich.
CBS News
Americans want a MSM controlled by Americans, like the Majority and not a liberal 2% ethnic minority pulling for their puppet.
Since bin-Laden was killed he hasn't done "anything" toward improving the lives of Americans or solving the crises that currently face the US.
If he doesn't kill the Keystone bill, he should be impeached.
Most Americans are politically illiterate......so they know NOT what they DO!
John Boehner has tried to kill every legislative proposal that would benefit the people of the US (continue unemployment benefits, keeping the current tax breaks) etc, by throwing in some insane proposal; saying they will not pass any legislation unless something he wants (which has virtually nothing to do with the above legislation) is included in the Bill.
He does this because he has been bought and paid for by big business, oil companies and the wealthy and literally has to live up to the promises he made when he took their money.
On this site yesterday; there was a statement that a large number of Republicans are currently furious with him.
If this is the case; they should kick him to the curb; just as they did with Gingrich.
Don't give him the opportunity to do any more damage.!!!
And you have a Top 1% Republicon Congress completely sold out to the corporate billionaires. They have stopped job creation, insisted on welfare for the rich and massive increase for the American War Department. My biggest criticism of Obama and the Dems is that they refused to prosecute Bush Cheney and the Wall Street Banksters.
Somehow, I believe history, and not the kind written by bitter old white right wingers, will rescue both Obama and Carter. After all, I have lived during both administrations and I have seen the right wing barrel of lies about both.