A Reality Check on Obama's Approval Ratings:

[amborin]

A reality check on the reality checks about Obama's approval among liberals

by: Chris Bowers
Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 17:19

Greg Sargent, Political Wire, and others have cited numbers from Public Policy Polling to argue that President Obama's approval ratings among self-identified liberals remain quite high. According to PPP, President Obama's job performance among self-identified liberals is still a robust 85%.
However, there is a serious flaw in citing these numbers: they are only based on a subsample of between 125-130,
which gives them a margin of error of plus or minus 8.9%. That is, they are only based on a subsample of 125-130 registered voters if PPP's new national survey is anything like their national survey from last month, when 19% of their overall sample of 667 voters self-identified as liberal.

By way of comparison, across the last four Gallup weekly approval polls, which have a combined sample of 14,346 respondents, President Obama's job performance among self-identified liberals has only averaged 74%. With Gallup identifying 20% of the electorate as liberal so far in 2010, that would mean a liberal subsample of 2,869, that would mean a margin of error of only 1.8%. That makes the Gallup numbers far, far more reliable than the PPP numbers.

snip

Across 899 self-identified liberals surveyed in their last four polls, YouGov's does show President Obama's approval rating at 84%. That number is much closer to PPP's result than to Gallup's. Also, the subsample only has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3%, which means that random error alone cannot account for the difference between the Gallup and YouGov numbers. Further, both Gallup and YouGov are sampling "all adults," and cell-phone onlys, so the difference cannot be found there either. That YouGov is conducted over the Internet might be causing problems, but Polimetrix, which actually conducts the YouGov polls, actually has a decent track record.


So, where does Obama's approval actually stand among self-identified liberals? While PPP's sample size is too small to be taken seriously, it would be unwise to look for "The One, True Poll," and completely ignore either YouGov or Gallup, both of which have good sample sizes. Personally, I am a big believer in simple poll averaging as a way of providing an accurate snapshot of electoral preference, and the numbers back me up on that belief. I see no reason why simple poll averaging can't be applied in this situation as well, which would peg President Obama's approval rating among self-identified liberals at around 79-80%.
Those are not very good numbers for President Obama among self-identified liberals.
However, they are to be expected given his overall approval rating of 44.6%, which is itself not a very good rating. Also, until the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats start passing public policy that has a more immediate, positive impact on the lives of most Americans, it is unlikely that this rating will improve. That is the case no matter the "political reality," and no matter much anyone sneers, or does not sneer, at progressives.

http://www.openleft.com/

[elocs]

1. So Gallup identifies 20% of the electorate as being liberal.

That should be a real eye-opener here for those who are in touch with reality as to why there is no huge movement to enact a progressive agenda. The simple truth is that Liberals are a minority even though more than that 20% might embrace certain and different liberal issues while rejecting the liberal label as a whole.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. The way the term "liberal" has been demonized, I'd bet that there are a lot of

people who are liberal and don't know it.

For example, the public option for health care gets a majority of the public, and if you ever try to find common ground with Republicans, you'll almost certainly find that deep down, they hate the increasing depersonalization and callousness of the business world.

Between the right-wing noise machine and actual Democrats who look down their noses at working class voters and advocate things like "free" trade you get a lot of ill feeling.

[elocs]

6. Because certain voters support certain liberal issues does not make them Liberals.

The right wing also makes the mistake of believing that more Americans agree and identify with them than actually do.

[frylock]

12. then what makes them liberals?

the cool tshirt?

[elocs]

13. Unless somebody consistently votes for and supports liberal candidates and issues

then I don't know how they could be counted as being Liberals.

Just because somebody occasionally votes for/supports a Democratic candidate or issue does not make them a Liberal, especially if they usually vote for Republicans.

We should not make the mistake of considering somebody one of us just because they occasionally fall into our column. When we look around ourselves and see Liberals we delude ourselves if we believe most people are Liberals. They are not. Not even close.

[amborin]

7. exactly!

the term itself was stigmatized and demonized; plus, it's vague and poorly defined; as you said, many strongly support liberal values and policies without self-identifying as liberal

[Mimosa]

17. ^ TRUE! ^

I'm meeting more and more people who have stopped identifying as either democrats or republicans because they do not perceive huge differences in economic or other policies. And they've seen the pols of each party are willing to trade off things which would help regular people.

[Hannah Bell]

14. a majority of the population support social security & universal healthcare.

that's liberal enough for me, i don't care what those people call themselves in a gallup poll.

i know plenty of people who wouldn't call themselves "liberal" (various reasons & one is the 30 years demonization the term has been subject to).

but they want social security & universal healthcare.

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[BzaDem]

3. You should look at liberal Democrats. If you include liberal Republicans and liberal Independents

you will of course get lower numbers.

Gallup tracks liberal Democratic approval of Obama every week. The last 10 weeks for liberal Democrats have been 82, 86, 89, 87, 88, 87, 86, 90, 86, and 83. It has been like this since he was inaugurated.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. But WHO is a liberal Democrat?

I've seen some staunch DLCers, who have never taken a liberal position on this board since joining, proclaim themselves as "liberals."

[BzaDem]

8. Whoever self-identifies as a liberal Democrat. Most Democrats self-identify as moderate

So I have a hard time believing that an army of DLC-ers is lying about their ideology every week to influence a subgroup poll that most people don't look at.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Saying it doesn't make it so

If your positions aren't left of center, you are not a liberal Democrat, not if the term has any meaning. You are simply part of the attempt to push the whole national political spectrum even farther rightward.

[BzaDem]

11. If there is an error at all, it is probably liberal Obama supporters calling themselves moderate

which underestimates his support among Liberal Democrats. Not moderate Obama supporters identifying themselves as liberals. In fact, you seem to agree with this upthread.

[BzaDem]

10. .

[bherrera]

15. President Obama does a good job

I think the problem is some of these "self identified liberals" are too far to the left. This makes them disatisfied with a pragmatic president. President Obama is willing to be moderate and accommodate the US population as a whole, and the radicals and communists can't understand anything but full attention to their agenda.

[Greyhound]

16. K&R