FoxNews Poll: Obama at 50%; 42% Disapprove

This is more unexpected and satisfying than you might think -- a week back, Obama's highest approval rate came from FoxNews --at 54%, above the next highest reading of 52%, and well above most other polls' findings of 49-51%. (Since then, Gallup has come out with an unlikely 54%, and CBS/NYT has come out with a enough-acid-to-supply-a-Burning-Man-festival rating of 56%.)

So it's nice to see that Fox's last reading was a bit of an outlier and they now too find Obama stuck right in the 49-51% range.

Check out questions 5-8. Obama's free-spending ways poll very poorly, and most want the spending cut, not expanded further.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Bonus: Gallup finds split in party ID the smallest since 2005, at six points, 48 Dem (and leaners) to 42 Republican (and Rep leaners).

As Morrissey notes, this should be remembered when Leftwing Media polls consistently feature a double-digit skew towards the Democrats.

It might, however, have to do with the fact that pollsters are ignoring the leaners. It seems independents are breaking to lean to the Republicans, without actually identifying themselves as Republicans.

Leaners actually don’t make much difference to the overall gap, but are still a critical part of the story. Even without them, the gap is only eight points, which is actually up from the spring, when it was six points. However, the gap among independent leaners has shifted dramatically. Democrats had an eight-point lead with them as recently as fall 2007. Republicans took their first lead with these voters in the entire four-year run of this survey, 15%-13%, reversing a 17%-11% lead for Democrats in the first quarter of this year.

So if a pollster just goes with party ID alone -- ignoring leaners -- he will conveniently overlook the fact that more independents now lean the GOPs way, and by not correcting for that fact, he'll wind up with a sample too skewed to the left.

Which is what I anticipate they'll do.

But note that even without that goose from independent leaners, the gap is still only 8 points, and not the 11 and 12 point gaps we keep seeing in polls like the CBS/NYT comedy.

Oh: Forgot the cowbell.

posted by Ace at 06:16 PM

| Access Comments