Obama Reaches New Low in WP Poll

Barack Obama is not so popular lately. With increasing debt and higher gas prices, the shades of Jimmy Carter appear to be showing up more and more in his presidency. Now we see his poll numbers sliding, even in friendly media outlets.

Take this Washington Post-ABC News poll. ABC News has been notoriously friendly to the President, even before the 2008 election. if you peruse their poll results, Obama is usually running a good 3-5% higher than other sources. is this a mistake? Call it a sampling error.

Sampling error or bias aside, the President's numbers are still falling. If we take a look at the latest numbers released today, it becomes clear that many are not satisfied with his leadership.

Approve: 47%
Disapprove: 50%
Other/dk: 3%

Take into consideration that this poll has a 10% sampling bias towards Democrats. In other words, they sampled 33% of their sample as Democrats with only 23% as Republicans.

The numbers are further biased, showing Obama consistently leading potential Republican opponents, despite his low approval numbers. If we take a look at whether people would actually vote for him, we get different numbers:

33. As you may know, Obama has announced that he is running for re-election in 2012. Would you say you will definitely vote for him, you’ll consider voting for him, or you definitely will not vote for him?

Definitely     Will     Definitely     No 
               will      consider    will not    opinion
4/17/11         28          25          45          2
12/12/10*       26          30          43          2
11/23/09**      24          31          41          4

 So we see some of the dynamics of next year's race opening up, even as the President's numbers are falling.

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