Are Obama's High Approval Numbers Bogus, Too?

 

If Barack Obama is so popular, why did the Democrats get creamed?

 

The President's high approval numbers have rarely made sense to me or to a lot of observers. 

 

Could they have been inflated by the same bad polling methodology that gave Trump almost no chance of winning the White House?

 

This matters because Obama's favorability ratings have fueled the liberal media narrative that Obama has had a wildly successful presidency.

 

According to the RealClearPolitics average, Obama's approval rating is at 53%. Gallup and Rasmussen have him at 56%. 

 

Ask yourself why Obama's approval rating is above 40% when...

 

-we've had the slowest economic recovery since World War 2,
-real family incomes continue to get squeezed,
-health care is in the toilet thanks to Obamacare,

-terrorist attacks in the U.S and around the world have skyrocted under Obama,
-and the President's Middle East policy, including the terrible Iran nuclear deal, has been a disaster of epic proportions? 

 

Gisela Sin, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told The Week, "What seems to affect presidential approval is not objective indicators of inflation or unemployment." She said "The perception of economic conditions" is what drives presidential approval. 

 

In other words, high presidential approval ratings are driven primarily by low prices at the gas pump and gains on Wall Street. 

 

That could be true, or it could be because of the same bad polling methods that failed to predict a Trump landslide.

 

Consider this. Experts say that when the sitting president's approval rating improves in the summer before an election, the incumbent party is the favorite to win.

 

Pollsters told us Obama's approval rating improved over the summer, and then the Democrats got hammered.

 

Gallup and Rasmussen, who have Obama's approval rating at 56%, also both indicated Clinton would win. Gallup, which did not do horse race polling in this election, did poll favorability and had Clinton 5 percentage points higher than Trump. Rasmussen had Clinton up two.

 

These polling models were clearly wrong.

 

So, it's fair to ask, what is President Obama's actual approval number?