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Let's Go Cherry-Picking!

Fair warning. I'm about to dig deep down into a few polls today, looking to ferret out some unnoticed trends that others have completely missed due to their total obscurity. Unfortunately, Greg Sargent over at the Washington Post predicted some partisan hacks like me (but not him) might try to work this angle.

Keep an eye on the poll cherry picking on the right today.

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 17, 2013

First up, a new WaPo/ABC poll was released today. WaPo tries to hide an interesting little morsel at the way top of the article, in the first sentence of the first paragraph.

President Obama is ending his fifth year in office matching the worst public approval ratings of his presidency, with record numbers of Americans saying they disapprove of his job performance and his once-hefty advantages over Republicans in Congress eroded in many areas, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

If you click over to the poll itself and scroll all the way down to the first question, you'll notice a pronounced shift in who Americans trust with the problems facing our nation.



If you're not yet exhausted from this fruitless hunt for slivers of positive minutia, buried in the backwater social media site known as Twitter, WaPo attempted to suppress this mostly useless tidbit: President Obama has the worst year 5 standing of anyone since Richard Nixon (whoever that is).

Post-ABC poll: Obama approval 43%, disapproval 55% - weakest 5yr mark since Nixon, G.W. Bush stood at 47% http://t.co/jJroLGuFOi @danbalz

— Post Polls (@PostPolls) December 17, 2013

Meanwhile, the latest Pew poll has found that liberal support for Obama has collapsed hard.

Following on the heels of other political groups, President Obama's liberal base is abandoning him, giving him an even lower level of support from his base than George W. Bush had from conservatives five years into his presidency, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.

Just 54 percent of liberal Democrats strongly approve of Obama in their new poll. For Bush at this stage of his presidency, 65 percent of conservatives strongly supported the Republican.

As yesterday's poll showed, millennials are souring on Obama. What's interesting is that even liberal millennials are as well.

Worse for Obama: Younger liberals have lost their thrill for Obama more than older liberals. Of those aged 18-49, just 46 percent strongly approve of the president, 39 percent “not so strongly,” said Pew.

As Greg might tell you, it's been a very positive couple of months for President Obama, but if you're willing to put in the hard work and have a keen, trained eye for poll analysis, you might be able to discover these little chinks in his armor. Don't read too much into it, though. I'm just cherry-pickin'.

[Update] He warned us, and now the prophecy has been fulfilled. Lotta cherry-pickin' out there.

@ron_fournier Our poll finds Ocare has rebounded by 20 points among young voters. Genuinely curious to know if that will get any coverage

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 17, 2013

Thanks to @slublog