Don’t look now, but Barack Obama is suddenly popular [View all]
Source: Washington Post
When the ball dropped in Times Square on Jan. 1 of this year, more than half of the country disapproved of the job that President Obama was doing, according to Gallup. That boded poorly for the Democrats over the course of the year; presidential approval correlates to both how his party fares in the presidential race (even if he's not on the ticket) but also to the results of Senate races. An unpopular Obama suggested a less popular whoever-was-about-to-win-the-Democratic-nomination.
But over the course of the year, Obama's approval numbers changed -- quickly, and a lot. In Gallup's most recent weekly average, Obama is at 51-45 -- the exact opposite of where he was on Jan. 1 and a 12-point swing since then. He's been at 50 percent or higher in every week since March 1, save one.
We looked at this shortly after Obama first hit the 50 percent mark, noting that his approval had been climbing pretty steadily for a few months. At that point, we speculated that it was probably linked to the campaign; after all, the last time he was above 50 percent, he'd been propelled there by his own reelection.
Looking at quarterly averages of Obama's approval, you can see how stark the improvement has been by party. Democrats have slowly looked at Obama more favorably since the beginning of 2015, but independents have begun to look at Obama much more favorably. After a sharp slide following his reelection, independents turned their opinions of Obama around at the beginning of 2014. Over the past year, that's escalated. And since ratings from Democrats and Republicans are more stable, that shift by independents moves the needle a lot.
Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/don%e2%80%99t-look-now-but-barack-obama-is-suddenly-popular/ar-BBtj9Ne?ocid=iehp
What is interesting is that his approval has gone up among all groups, even independents and Republicans, not just Democrats.
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