United States presidential approval rating Information & United States presidential approval rating Links at HealthHaven.com

In the United States, presidential job approval ratings were introduced by George Gallup in the late 1930s (probably 1937) to gauge public support for the president during his presidency. An approval rating is a percentage determined by a polling which indicates the percentage of respondents to an opinion poll who approve of a particular person or program. Most often an approval rating is given to a political figure based on responses to a poll in which a sample of people are asked whether they approve or disapprove of that particular political figure. A typical question might ask:

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as President?"^[1]

Like most surveys that predict public opinion, the approval rating is subjective. Many unscientific approval rating systems exist that skew popular opinion. However, the approval rating is generally accepted as the general opinion of the people.

[edit] Current President Barack Obama

Polling Group (Reverse Chronologically)	Date	Approval	Disapproval	Other
Polling group's most recent poll for President Barack Obama:
Rasmussen Reports^[2]^[3]	12/22/2009	44%	55%	1%
USA Today/Gallup^[4]^[5]	12/18-21/2009	49%	46%	5%
NBC/Wall Street Journal^[5]^[6]	12/11-14/2009	47%	46%	7%
ABC News/Washington Post^[5]^[7]	12/10-13/2009	50%	46%	4%
Pew Research Center^[5]	12/9 - 13/2009	49%	40%	11%
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics^[5]	12/8-9/2009	50%	44%	6%
CBS News/New York Times^[5]	12/4-8/2009	50%	39%	11%
Marist College^[5]	12/3-7/2009	46%	44%	10%
Ipsos/McClatchy^[5]	12/3-6/2009	49%	49%	2%
CNN/Opinion Research^[5]	12/2-3/2009	48%	50%	2%
Quinnipiac University^[5]	12/1-6/2009	46%	44%	10%
Associated Press - GfK^[5]^[8]	11/5-9/2009	54%	43%	3%
Zogby International^[9]^[3]	11/4-6/2009	49%	51%	0%

[edit] Historical comparison

Obama joins the two most recent fellow Democrats (Clinton and Carter) and two recent Republicans (Reagan and Ford) in falling below 50% approval within the first year in office. While his predecessor, republican George W. Bush, enjoyed high approval ratings throughout his first years, Bush had very low approval numbers by the end of his second term. Historical Gallup Poll approval highs and lows for each President since 1937:^[10]^[11]

Order	President	Highest Approval	Lowest Approval	Approval Difference	Highest Disapproval	Average Approval ^[10]
44^[4]	Obama	69 (1/22/09)	47 (12/6/09)	22	46 (12/6/09, 12/21/09)	58.0^[1]^[12]
43^[13]	Bush (G.W.)	90 (9/21/01)	25 (10/3/08, 10/10/08, 10/31/08)	65	71 (10/10/08)	49.4
42^[14]	Clinton	73 (12/19/98)	37 (5/26/93)	36	54 (9/6/94)	55.1
41^[15]	Bush (G.H.W.)	89 (2/28/91)	29 (7/31/92)	60	60 (7/31/92)	60.9
40^[16]	Reagan	68 (5/16/86)	45 (1/28/83)	45	56 (1/28/83)	52.8
39^[17]	Carter	75 (3/18/77)	28 (6/29/79)	47	59 (6/29/79)	45.5
38^[18]	Ford	71 (8/16/74)	37 (3/28/75)	34	46 (4/18/75, 11/21/75)	47.2
37^[19]	Nixon	67 (1/26/73)	24 (8/2/74)	43	66 (8/2/74)	49.1
36^[20]	Johnson	79 (2/28/64)	35 (8/7/68)	44	52 (8/7/68, 3/10/68)	55.1
35^[21]	Kennedy	83 (3/8/62)	56 (9/12/63)	27	30 (9/12/63, 11/8/63)	70.1
34^[22]	Eisenhower	79 (12/14/56)	48 (3/27/58)	31	36 (3/27/58)	65.0
33^[23]	Truman	87 (6/1/45)	22 (2/9/52)	65	67 (1/6/52)	45.4
32^[24]	Roosevelt (F.D.)	84 (1/8/42)	48 (8/18/39)	36	46 (5/22/38, 5/29/38, 11/7/38)

[edit] Graphs

Gallup Poll graphs of approval ratings for Presidents of the United States:

President Harry S. Truman.	President Dwight D. Eisenhower.	President John F. Kennedy.	President Lyndon B. Johnson.
President Richard Nixon.	President Gerald Ford.	President Jimmy Carter.	President Ronald Reagan.
President George H. W. Bush.	President Bill Clinton.	President George W. Bush.	Barack Obama approval rating on December 6, 2009 at 15:19