How can Obama have 53 approval and be down in Gallup?

[VirginiaTarheel]

I know it is a different three day sample but Obama has had positive approval ratings in its poll for a while now. Moreover, why isn't the media focusing on Obama's surging approval rating?

[cthulu2016]

1. Approval is all adults, not only registered voters

[rayofreason]

14. Not even likely voters. n/t

[FBaggins]

2. Plenty of ways

Romney could have a higher approval figure - but most polls don't ask that question. There could be people who approve of the president's performance but still prefer someone else.

Quite a few presidents have underperformed their approval figure in the past.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. Has A President With An Approval Rating > 50% On Election Day In Gallup Ever Been Defeated?

[FBaggins]

10. A fallacious question

As has been pointed out to you multiple times I believe.

There haven't exactly been a statistically significant population of presidents just above and just below 50% to make such a judgment. Why is this question any different from asking whether a president has ever had an approval rating >55 but received <55% of the vote? What's magical about 50?

The underlying argument is the (incorrect) assumption that if someone says that they approve of a president's job performance... they will show up and vote for him. That's simply not the case. There are people who don't approve of the president's performance who will nevertheless vote for him (fearing correctly that Romney would be much worse), and there are people who approve of his performance who think that Romney would do a better job... and there are many millions of people who approve/disapprove who will not vote at all.

When you have poll after poll after poll actually asking whether a person will vote and, if so, who (s)he will vote for... it's silly to fixate on a question that is not a proxy for actual votes while ignoring the one that explicitly is.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. I Thought You Would Be More Humble After Geek Tragedy Owned You In This Thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251163179

[FBaggins]

21. Uh... no. Humility or lack thereof has nothing to do with it.

And as I pointed out in that thread... he was wrong.

I point out that two days ago he said that we would know yesterday who was right... and yesterday's poll did not show the movement he predicted. Now you want to look at the second day's movement (smaller than his prediction) and claim that he was correct...

... you do realize that what you're thus claiming is that you think that even this less-than-predicted movement is artificial and not related to the president's performance in the debate... right? That last night's polling really wasn't any better than the last few days and we only moved up because of a bad day a week ago dropping off?

You really believe that?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. The President Has Moved Up In That Tracker Four Points Since Sunday. That's A Large Move

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/gallup-poll-romney-leads/2012/10/21/id/460837

[FBaggins]

25. The prediction was up to five points RV since Monday.

Way to try and move the goalposts though.

The actual RV change has been two points (and potentially not even that with rounding).

[geek tragedy]

3. All adults > Registered Voters > Likely Voters

Romney is ahead in the last category. Obama is narrowly ahead in the second category, and if all adults voted he'd be a shoo-in.

[rayofreason]

18. All adults do not vote...

...and to be honest, it would be scary if they were forced to (which would be the only way to get EVERYONE to vote). I recently saw a post on some site (sorry - don't remember which site) where a person said that he would never vote for "Nick Romney." Well, I certainly will not vote for "Nick Romney", and for that matter, no one else will either. On the other hand, what are the odds that that person will actually take the time to go vote and pull the lever for Obama? Not too great, I would suspect. Sure, we'd take the vote, but it is just as likely that a person who does not know the name of the presidential candidate could vote (R) downticket using the same lack of knowledge to decide those votes as well, or maybe even have a change of mind in the booth ("Oh, MITT, not NICK. I like the name MITT. It reminds me of cats. I'll vote for him&quot . For some low-information voters, voting is a random walk process.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. If There Was Compulsory Voting The Rs Would Never Win A Nat'l Race

All you have to do is look at Obama's numbers as they are filtered from all adults to registered to likely voters.

[Jazzy_Obama]

4. They want a horse race

The media wants a horse race it's good for their ratings! Furthermore Romneys so called "surge" in gallups poll has dropped 50-47 now! That's within the margin of error! I guess gallups trying to get there credibility back. Hopefully this will shut up the GOP & media romney "momentum" narrative cuz there is none!

[ProudProgressiveNow]

24. +1

[GallopingGhost]

6. All the media wants to do is push

this asinine notion that Romney is winning.

Negative headlines all over about how women are President Obama's only hope in Ohio, Obama's desperate last stand, blah, blah

Let the media rant. They are obviously in the tank for Romney.

They're in for a big blue surprise on election night. The voters will have the last word.

[Blue Idaho]

7. Bad Poll Numbers...

The cost of pushing your agenda through bad polling data is the death of the company's reputation. Gallup is an outlier and if they keep it up - no one will trust them enough to pay for any polling from them.

Some dangerous short term thinking going on over there at Gallup.

[DrToast]

8. In addition to RV vs. LV, another important factor

The approval rating is based on a 3 day rolling average. The popular vote poll is based on a 7 day rolling average.

So the approval rating would likely change first when there is movement. Obama is getting a bounce from the debate, but it's not reflected as much in the voting poll because there are more dates pre-debate in those data.

Look for Obama to keep gaining in the election poll as more pre-debate dates fall out of the poll.

[MSMITH33156]

9. I think

Obama is winning nationally and where it matters. But ALL of Gallup's numbers are ridiculous. Romney is not up 3 in LV, and sorry, but Obama does not only have a 42% disapproval rating. The 53% approval is believable, but so many Republicans loathe him, and they are almost half the country. There is no way that disapproval is right either. With all that said, from Romney's perspective, this is quickly turning into a redux of the 2008 campaign, replete with the Republican babbling nonsensically about how the "surge is working", as he heads toward electoral defeat.

[WI_DEM]

11. All the Gallup numbers are moving in the right direction--as the approval rating grows so

will his standing among LV & RV.

[BlueDemKev]

12. If you find out, let me know...

...I've been wondering about that for days.

[november3rd]

13. Gallup Doesn't Poll Minorities

It's a Christian Fundamentalist organization, as in, old school CF.

[FBaggins]

16. Don't be silly... Of course they do.

Where would you get such an idea?

[VirginiaTarheel]

15. Whether true or not, the conventional wisdom is that

Presidents are reelected when their job approval rating is at least at 50 percent. Political pundits and media have repeated that mantra for decades, including this year.

[yellowcanine]

17. Because of the Likely Voter model Gallup uses. He is up one point in Registered Voters.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

19. "If you don't vote, you can't complain"

Fucking people who approve but don't even register to vote are equally useless.

[NewJeffCT]

22. Obama is down by a huge amount in the South

but, is ahead in every other region, though not as much anywhere as he's down in the South.

So, the South weighs down the entire poll, even though it won't matter if Obama loses by 5 points in Tennessee or 25 points.

[VirginiaTarheel]

27. Dems need to Publicize Obama's surging approval numbers. Repubs don't want to talk about it at all.