Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
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The Rasmussen Reports daily
Presidential Tracking Poll
for Wednesday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13. Thats just a point above the lowest level ever recorded for this President. Its also the sixth straight day in negative double digits, matching the longest such streak (
see trends).
Just 31% of voters believe that
Congress has a good understanding of the health care proposal.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Republicans have a favorable opinion of their partys national chairman,
Michael Steele.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free
daily e-mail update). Updates also available on
Twitter and
Facebook.
Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.
The
New Jersey Governors race remains a toss-up. Over the past week, both Jon Corzine and Chris Christie lost ground while support independent candidate Chris Daggett grew and so did the number of undecideds. Republicans hold a five-point advantage on the
Generic Congressional Ballot.In
Illinois,the race for Barack Obamas Senate seat is a toss-up.
Rasmussen Reports is growing.Were pleased to report that John Troyan has joined our team as a Sales Manager, Debra Falk is our new Director of Communications, and Alex Napoliello is a new Website Administrator. The talent and experience of our new team members will help us get the public and the media the information they need, when and how they need it, while extending the reach of our brand and our
portfolio of services.
(More Below)
Support for the
health care plan proposed by the President and Congressional Democrats is down to 42%. Fifty-four percent (54%) are opposed.
Scott Rasmussen has recently had three analysis columns published in the Wall Street Journal. The most recent was on
health care. Earlier columns were on the
President's approval ratings and how
Obama won the White House by campaigning like Ronald Reagan. If you'd like Scott Rasmussen to speak at your meeting, retreat, or conference, contact
Premiere Speakers Bureau. You can also learn about Scott's favorite place on earth or his time working with
hockey legend Gordie Howe.
It is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama's numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That's because some of the President's most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote.
(More Below)
About our Polling
Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (
see methodology).
Pollster.com founder Mark Blumenthal noted that independent analyses from the
National Council on Public Polls,
the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the
Pew Research Center, the
Wall Street Journal and
FiveThirtyEight.com have all shown that the horse-race numbers produced by automated
telephone surveys did at least as well as those from conventional live-interviewer surveys in predicting election outcomes.
Additionally, an analysis by Pollster.com partner Charles Franklin found that despite identically sized three-day samples, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll is
less variable than Gallup. During Election 2008, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll was the least volatile of all those tracking the race. That stability is one reason that Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com said that the Rasmussen tracking poll
would probably be the one I'd want with me on a desert island."
A Fordham University professor
rated the national pollsters on their record in Election 2008. We also have provided a
summary of our results for your review. In 2008, Obama won 53%-46% and our final poll showed Obama winning 52% to 46%. While we were pleased with the final result, Rasmussen Reports was especially pleased with the stability of our results. On every single day for the last six weeks of the campaign, our daily tracking showed Obama with a stable and solid lead attracting more than 50% of the vote.
In 2004 George W. Bush received 50.7% of the vote while John Kerry earned 48.3%. Rasmussen Reports was the only firm to project both candidates totals within half a percentage point by projecting that Bush would win 50.2% to 48.5%. (see our
2004 results).
Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling errorfor the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters--is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for
full-week results are available for
Premium Members.
Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large (
see methodology). Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. While partisan affiliation is generally quite stable over time, there are a fair number of people who waver between allegiance to a particular party or independent status. Over the past five years, the number of Democrats in the country has increased while the number of Republicans has decreased.
Our baseline targets are established based upon
separate survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews) and targets are updated monthly. Currently, the baseline targets for the adult population are 37.2% Democrats, 32.7% Republicans, and 30.1% unaffiliated. Likely voter samples typically show a slightly smaller advantage for the Democrats.
A review of last weeks
key polls is posted each Saturday morning. Other stats on Obama are updated daily on the Rasmussen Reports
Obama By the Numbers page. We also invite you to review other
recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls.
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Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
The Rasmussen Reports
Election Edge Premium Service offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage available anywhere.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.
