Latest Presidential Tracking Polls 2012

Public Hopeful of Obama Despite No Change

7/4/2009, by Proloy Bhatta

HIGHLIGHTS

48% feel the US and their allies are winning the war on terror.
Only 18% feel that the congress is doing an excellent or good job.
49% of adults feel their finances are getting worse.

It has been five and a half months since Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009 so I wondered something kind of trivial... "Where's the change?"

We are a premium subscriber with Rasmussen Reports and have access to all of their tracking polls. So we compared how the public viewed issues before Obama took the oath of office with how they view those same issues now.

There are going to be fluctuations from day to day so to keep things consistent, I've decided to choose the latest poll and compare it with the very first poll of the new year (2009). This keeps me from being accused of hand picking the data to make it look a certain way.

Unlike most media outlets, I don't already have an argument in mind before looking at the data. I let the data tell me all the answers I want to know.

So here were the most pertinent of questions I wanted to check. (War, Congress, Finances, Economy, Recession).

Question 1: Who is winning the war on terror?

July 1: US & Allies: 48%
Jan 5-6: US & Allies: 47%

Question 2: How do you rate the way that Congress is doing its job?

Jun 27-28: Excellent 2%, Good 16%
Jan 3-4: Excellent 1, Good 10%

Question 3: Are your personal finances getting better or worse these days?

July 3: Better 19%, Worse 49%
Jan 3: Better 18%, Worse 53%

Question 4: How do you rate the U.S. economy these days?

July 3: Excellent 3%, Good 6%, Fair 34%, Poor 55%
Jan 3: Excellent 3%, Good 5%, Fair 28%, Poor 62%

Question 5: Is the U.S. Economy Currently in Recession?

July 3: Yes: 77%, No: 11%
Jan 3: Yes 80%, No: 10%

From the five questions above, you'd have to look hard to see any meaningful differences in public opinion.

But we'll try our best.

Congress is fairing better. Their Excellent+Good rating has jumped from 11% to 18% in the past half a year.
The Fair-Poor rating of the economy has also improved. It has gone from -34 to -21, an improvement of 13 points.

Despite the better ratings on the economy, the Excellent+Good rating has still remained in the 8-9% range as if the only change was a few disgruntled people who changed their perception of the economy from Poor to Fair.

It is up to the reader to determine whether or not this is a significant amount of change. I personally do not believe there has been much of an improvement except in the case of Congress.

We'd be wholly biased if we ended our discussion of the issues here. The real improvement was in the last question we checked.

Question 6: Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are going in the right direction or have they gotten off on the wrong track?

May 25-31: Right Direction: 37%, Wrong Track: 55%
Jan 5-11: Right Direction: 17%, Wrong Track: 75%

The number of people who believe the country is headed in the right direction has doubled in the past six months. If one was to analyze the dates the changes occurred, you'd notice that the majority of the jumps were due to Obama becoming the president.

But if public perception of the war is the same, their perception of the economy is still pretty bad, and the congress ratings only jumping slightly, why do so many more people believe we are headed in the right direction? Just because Obama is our president?

At least with Obama, the public feels like we have a president that is working for the public good. And although most voters would say things have not significantly improved yet, they are willing to give Obama's policies time to improve the country.

But where has the change been with Obama? Obama has not had a drastic change in foreign policy. All that has changed is the focus has switched from Iraq to Afghanistan. And on the economy, Obama is continuing Bush's policies of bailouts.