Midknight Review -- new and revised: Obama's approval rating is significant to the 2016 election cycle, but not as significant as Hillary's

THE PRESIDENT’S JOB APPROVAL [and election year politics] (by Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley Sabato's Crystal Ball)

President Obama is not on the ballot, but he looms over the race. His national standing has remained very consistent -- some would say stagnant -- throughout much of his presidency. Throughout 2015, Obama’s approval has generally been around 45%, with a little bit of variation. It seems reasonable to expect that he will be around the same point next year, unless further domestic terrorism or other developments send his ratings tumbling. According to Gallup, Obama has averaged a middling 47% approval throughout his presidency, and as we found earlier this year, his approval has been the steadiest in modern history.

Postwar history suggests that when a president has weak approval, his party pays a price in the next election. Harry Truman (1952), Lyndon Johnson (1968), Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980), George H.W. Bush (1992), and George W. Bush (2008) all had mediocre-to-poor approval ratings, and the opposing party won all of those elections (defeating incumbents Ford, Carter, and H.W. Bush, and winning open-seat races in the others). Meanwhile, the strong approval ratings of Dwight Eisenhower (1960) and Bill Clinton (2000) couldn’t save their would-be successors, Vice Presidents Richard Nixon and Al Gore. Both lost excruciatingly close elections. Some of these approval ratings are from months before the election and don’t necessarily reflect where the incumbent’s approval was on Election Day -- Truman, for example, was at 40% in late June 1948, but his approval was likely higher by November, when he won an upset victory.

Note: keep in mind that Obama's approval numbers in terms of specifics, is in the 30 percentile range in most area, and, Hillary's numbers are worse when it comes to leadership and trustworthiness. What must be of major concern to Democrat strategists, is the fact the fact that Obama lost 4.5 million votes in 2012 versus 2008 numbers, scoring a win with 51% of the national vote . . . . and Hillary is no Barack Obama. THAT has to bother Democrat leadership ~ editor.

Table 1: Approval of sitting president at time of election, 1948-2012

The Stated Nonsense from the Left now includes these Progressive goals:

July 2, 2008, Obama had this to say: "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

MICHELLE OBAMA: "Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place as a nation."

“ . . . . . . they have become a generation of activists possessed with that most American of ideas – that people who love their country can change it.” -- Obama the Radical

On September 30, Van Jones told MSNBC "I think everybody should hold onto your seats. October is going to be the turning point when it comes to the progressive fight back."

Midknight Review -- new and revised

Obama's approval rating is significant to the 2016 election cycle, but not as significant as Hillary's

THE PRESIDENT’S JOB APPROVAL [and election year politics] (by Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley Sabato's Crystal Ball)

Table 1: Approval of sitting president at time of election, 1948-2012

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