Presidential approval is the single most important piece of political data that is regularly collected.
That’s not just because the presidency is the most important office in the land; it is also because no other indicator has proved to be so strongly correlated with real outcomes.
{mosads}For example, pollsters ask whether people approve or disapprove of the job Congress is doing, but there is precious little evidence that measure is related to any real-world result.
By contrast, presidential approval has been authoritatively linked to how well the president’s party does in congressional elections, how the economy is objectively performing and how the president or his party’s candidate fares in presidential elections.
So it is notable that after being consistently negative for 34 months, more people now approve than disapprove of President Obama’s performance in office.
By mid-May of 2013, Huffpost Pollster’s average of the president’s approval rating had dipped into negative territory. At his nadir, more than 10 points more of survey participants disapproved of his performance than approved.
Obama remained in that territory until after the 2014 elections, when he climbed up to 5 points net negative. He plateaued for about a year and then his standing began to deteriorate again, until about January of this year. Now more people approve than disapprove by 4 points.
Why the improvement?
Begin by assessing changes in the fundamentals, on which I often harp here. I confess I don’t have the tools or time available at hand to speak with evidentiary certainty on the question, but applying the intraocular test to the data appears revealing.
Consumer confidence, as measured by the University of Michigan, does not correlate closely with the president’s fall and rise during this period. While Obama’s standing has improved since January, consumer confidence fell slightly.
Of course, over the same period, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index rose slightly, making it clear that Americans’ perception of the economy is unclear.
Voters have certainly not been giving Obama enough credit for an improving economy in recent months. While his overall approval rating has been moving into positive territory since January, ratings of his performance on the economy remain net negative and at about the same level as early in the year.
So while there has been good economic news in the jobs numbers, Americans are not seeing the improvement clearly, nor crediting the president for it.
Another fundamental is the extent to which the country is at peace. While direct data on this topic is slippery, there has been a slight increase in approval of Obama’s handling of foreign policy. It’s not much, but at least it’s consistent with some upward movement in his overall approval rating.
One might also look at public evaluations of what the president himself regards as his signal achievement: healthcare reform. The poll averages provide little support for the notion that support for ObamaCare increased in 2016.
So what’s happened since January that could have improved the president’s ratings?
The Republicans.
Again, we can’t be definitive. But look at the data.
Never positive, public assessments of the GOP have worsened since the start of the year. Unfavorable ratings of the Republican Party have increased by 4 points since January, with no increase in favorables. Meanwhile, attitudes toward Democrats improved a net of about 3 points.
So while Obama may have been helped at the margins by an improving economy and a foreign policy somewhat more appreciated by the public, Republicans, too, seemed to have helped the president.
The childishness and ineptitude of the Republican candidates make Obama look good if only in comparison.
But whatever the reason behind the bump, if it remains in place, decades of research suggests it will help Democrats up and down the ticket in November.
Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the minority leader of the Senate and the Democratic whip in the House.