Obama Poll Watch — November, 2016

The Lame-Duck Honeymoon President Obama is on track to end his second term in office with higher job approval than he began it, back in January of 2013. Call it the third (or lame-duck) honeymoon, if you will. Obama saw record job approval in November, measured both monthly and daily, and tied his daily low for job disapproval (previously set February 24, 2013). After a very strong October, Obama charted an even stronger November in public opinion polls. Let’s take a look at the new chart for this month to see all of this. [Click on graph to see larger-scale version.] November, 2016 After gaining 1.2 points in October, Obama’s average monthly job approval rose at exactly the same rate in November, which put him at 52.9 percent approval for the month — beating the 52.7 percent record high he set at the very beginning of his second term. Obama’s disapproval rating improved even more — after falling a single point in October, Obama’s job disapproval monthly average fell 1.4 points in November, putting him at 44.0 percent disapproval. The trend was clear all month long, with no reversal in his daily average’s improvement. As this column series winds down (only two more to go after this one!), monthly analysis becomes rather pointless. All presidents usually get a bounce upwards during the lame-duck period at the end of their term, and Obama is no exception. Partly this is due to people exhausted over the years-long presidential contest, partly it is due to people looking forward not backward, and partly it is due to people giving Obama the benefit of the doubt on his way out the door. Even George W. Bush got a tiny bump upwards in the polls in his final months in office (although that’s relative to his record-low ratings for almost his entire second term — Bush rose from a dismal 25.3 percent approval before the 2008 election to reach only 29.3 percent approval in his final month in office). So, really, the only political analysis necessary for Obama’s final months is “people are already missing him, before he’s even gone.” That’s all that really needs to be said, at this point. Overall Trends The overall trend, obviously, is up. Barack Obama is going to have his most-improved year ever, at this point that much is just about guaranteed. At the end of last December, Obama was at only 43.7 percent average monthly job approval, and 51.6 percent disapproval — a total of 7.9 percent “underwater.” In the past eleven months, his job approval has improved a whopping 9.2 points, while his disapproval fell 7.6 points. He’s now 8.9 percent above water and setting second-term records. Almost every one of the months in 2016 were positive for Obama, with only two real setbacks — both of which he easily overcame the following month. Obama not only charted his best second-term monthly average job approval in November, he also had the best daily average of his second term […]

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