President Barack Obama’s numbers have varied a bit on the Gallup Daily tracking poll for weeks — but today there is bigger overall jump. 48% disapprove and 43% approve which is unusual because BOTH his approval and disapproval ratings changed by 2% (2% less approval and 2% approval). There has not usually been a 48-43 gap. On some recent days Obama seemed closer to edging near 50 percent.
These polls have been see-saw but the bottom line is that if he is below 50 percent in his approval ratings going into the mid-terms its a sign of how the Democrats will do.
No on is expecting the Democrats to do well at this point — except perhaps partisan wishful thinkers or partisans doing spin to try and not discourage Democratic voters. But these polls numbers with the approval-disapproval gap will spell c-a-t-a-s-t-o-p-h-e if they remain unchanged or worsen.
The Pollster.com average of polls looks bad for Obama and the Democrats as well:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.