One month in, Barack Obama's approval slips, disapproval doubles

One month down, 47 to go.

And Barack Obama's poll numbers have slid almost 10% already. According to the latest Gallup Poll, the new president's approval rating of 68% in January has slipped now to 63%, about average for recent new presidents one month in.

What isn't average, however, is Obama's new disapproval rating -- 24%, or 50% higher than the 16% average for a month-old new presidency.

And it's twice the 12% disapproval rate that Obama had last month.

While liberal and independent support has held fairly steady, the rookie chief executive's approval among Republicans has plunged from 41% to 30%, presumably tied at least somewhat to growing awareness of the spending program. The drop has been especially steep among conservatives, from 36% at inauguration to 22% now.

Additionally, Obama's support has weakened among middle-class Americans, those touted during the campaign as benefiting from his promised tax cuts. Among that working crowd, Obama's approval fell from 69% to 58%.

Tonight's speech before a joint session of Congress and a nationwide television audience will give the new 47-year-old president an opportunity to make his case, not just for his already-signed but still controversial economic stimulus package but for his own evolving style of executive leadership.

And to possibly put the crumpled Cabinet nominations of recent weeks behind him.

Historically, 63-62% approval after a month is about average; Ronald Reagan had the worst at 55%, and Jimmy Carter had the best at 71%. Look how they turned out.

In fact, after 30 days, the Gallup Poll shows Obama has about the same approval rating as did George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, the man whose eight years in office the Illinois senator so often denounced as destructive during the recent campaign.

What's surprising, as the astute Don Surber points out this morning, is that the gap between approval and disapproval is worse now for Obama than it was for the newly departed Texan after his first month. Bush's differential gap was 41 points between approval and disapproval. Obama's is 39 points, still above Bill Clinton, who had the worst differential of 30 points. Carter again had the best after one month of 62. Richard Nixon had 54.

The new Gallup survey involved 1,614 adult Americans between Feb. 19-21 with a margin of error of +/-3%.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo (top): A shooting star. Credit: Getty Images

Photo (bottom): Associated Press

Comments

[mike obermeyer]

You can not spend & tax your way out of the recession.

[m]

Most wasted use of virtual space. I hope the latimes didn't actually put this article in print. 68% - 63% does not equal 'almost 10%' I don't care what kind of special math you are trying to use. You can't utilize the +/- 3%margin of error to validate your statement and then ignore what it maybe saying on the other end. The difference is 5%, plus 3% equals 8% (that's really grasping at almost 10%) BUT ON THE FLIP SIDE 5%, minus 3% = 2%, way, way, way far away from 10%. IN ADDITION (pun intended) when does 1614 people represent the 300 million or so OTHER people in the united states. Really? This made it past the editor?

[SonofSmog]

Buyer's remorse.

[Phil D]

The opposition is run by professional Republican nay sayers who have control of Fox News and other media. They fail to mention the bankruptcy of Bush and the death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan which has ruined our public image and our finances. These irresponsible criminals need to be tried and imprisoned for their misdeeds instead of being allowed to sabotage this new administration that won an overwhelming victory last year. When you hear the critics identify who they are and their role in our presenet conditon.

[Claudia]

This is very sad that his numbers are going down. What's wrong with the Americans. This is a huge country with the biggest economy in the world. Of course it takes a huge amount of money to get it back on track. To me, it's all a Republican conspiracy. It does not take much for the Americans to believe in anything. In one month in office he has accomplished more than any President accomplished in one term. America is in a serious financial situation right now and they have to be patient but if they listen to Rush Limbaugh who wishes Obama to fail, well ..... How would American feel if it would have been McCain/Palin in place.
Give him a chance!

[Jose Pistolas]

Let's all be rational about this. By a review of the literature pertaining tho these gallup polls, the entire ramifications and future results are never presented.Taking a new vocabulary term just being inserted next year, all the so called "haters" (i.e. republicans) will just use these temporary figures to paint a slandered picture of our new leader. Republicans (i.e. "haters") should look at GWB Jr's final approval/disapproval ratings and go back to the bench where you belong. Give this man an opportunity to paint the white house black before you put these comments out there! The Black south shall rise again, and we are gonna pay you all back for what you did to us, native americans, Japanese, people of color.Get ready for the "Operation: Rainbow" Manifesto which will circulate soon.

[R MacDonald]

With the amount of conservative carping over the last month, I can't say I'm surprised. The fact is, that the right has a vested intrest in seeing President Obama do poorly. The right has already demonstrated they will be obstructionist, no matter the cost to America at large; all the while shouting country first. These people say they love America, but they obviously loathe Americans. It's just more of the GOP big lie politics.

[Tim Claiborne]

As we see once again in politics, you CAN get elected with smoke and mirrors, but you CAN'T govern that way. "Hope" and "change" are not policies and it is becoming painfully obvious that this guy has no clue what he is doing. Bush got him elected and now he is returning the favor by making Bush look not nearly as bad as he looked 1 month ago

[bill]

marxist socialist the most liberal senator in the country with no experience at running anything. America is so dumbed down it is frightening. there are dire ramifications the american people are going to have to deal with while this marxist alinsky wright ayers product is running a country he hates

[Obama no messiah/koolaid will sour.]

The Messiah will not hold. The koolaid will sour. He is mortal and will do his best. Most who backed him will do so as self seving regardless of what he does. The other 45=% of us who did not vote for him-hoe he slants things back are way in a few years-but at the same time want the us and us to all be better off.
the economy is one thing-his inexpereince and biden's lackluster 30+ years running a tiny state and the same old govt strategies-will not accomplish much. Hillary-like a soap opera. Overall way ot liberal and socialistic. we need ot fight against this and preserve the core of the USa/,The GOP is constructively trying to do that.

[Obamanation ongoing]

to the bozo above --this "sample" size used with probability theories is valid-you have no clue due!

[Chelsea]

Republicans need to get over it. He's the president. Either get with the program or resign. They are only opposed because of either skin color or his stimulus package is going to keep money out of their pockets. Everyone who is smart knows that the GOP is all about how to keep the wealthy wealthy and how to keep middle and lower class families to pay for their mansions, cars, yachts, and whatever. Hello, middle class Americans are the majority of this country! President Obama is trying to help people like myself, a single mother, from going bankrupt just trying to keep up with everyday expenses. Which DO NOT include TVs, rims, clothes, or whatever certain types of people think. This "recession" is not affecting members of the GOP which is why they are against everything President Obama stands for. For those of us who are trying to stay afloat and the others who are comfortable and want to stay that way, need to put their trust in President Obama and know that he is trying to do the right thing.

[abdulH]

PURE INSANITY! IN THESE DIRE TIMES, "WE" AS CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NEED TO EMPOWER, RALLY, SHOW PASSION AND COMPASSION, ENTHUSIASM, AND HOPE ALONG SIDE OUR PRESIDENT(OBAMA). WE NEED SOLUTIONS, NOT BICKERING ON WHO IS POPULAR AND WHOS NOT. WE GIVE PEOPLE A CHANCE, HELP THEM AND NOT CRITICIZE AND ABUSE THEM. WE NEED TO PUT OUR DIFFERENCES ASIDE AND UNITE AS ONE. THAT IS THE POWER OF WORLD COMMUNITY AND LEADERSHIP.

[Bill Aubin]

As long as the 'One" has his teleprompter, he will lead us!!

[Olga]

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET!!!

[nickio]

Things will get worse before they get better. People are looking for a fix now, and that is not how it works..

[abdul]

*IN THESE DIRE TIMES "WE" AS CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NEED TO EMPOWER, ENERGIZE, SHOW PASSION AND COMPASSION, ENTHUSIASM, CONVICTION ALONG SIDE OUR PRESIDENT (OBAMA) WE NEED TO GIVE HIM AND OTHERS A CHANCE. WE NEED TO STOP THE BICKERING AND WHOS POPULAR AND NOT. WE MUST UNITE AS ONE TO BE AN EXAMPLE TO SHOW LEADERSHIP IN THE WORLD DESPITE OUR DIFFERENCES. WE NEED TO PRACTICE THESE NOT TALK ABOUT THEM.

[Ashley B]

See, here's what bothers me. You can't expect things to change over night. Plain and simple. Instead of focusing on the rates at which his popularity rises and declines(which mind you are not declining by 10%, you uneducated journalists, who apparently don't understand basic addition and subtraction), how about we actually pay attention to things that are worth our time. Like, maybe the fact that whole reason we've had such a drastic change in our economy and power is because people are more susceptable to change when in times of crisis and the usual traditional values are not helping. Seriously, do your history.

Our whole Iraqi war can be compared to Napoleon when he was invading Italy. Macciavellian's "The Prince" is where it all came from boys. Read it and weep.

[Luke]

You can't really so unknowledgable about math and polls. To get a change in percentage, you subtract and then divide by the original percentage. (68%-63%)/68% = 7.35%, which I agree is short of 10%, but it's not 5%. If something that costs $50 gets reduced to $40, it's a reduction of 20%, not 10%. Also, this is a poll done by Gallup, one of the premier polling organizations, which is fairly objective and if anything may be slightly left of center. Polls always use a representative sample of the population, which through statiscal analysis demonstrates an accuracy of a certain +/- %. You can't ask millions of people every time you want to poll them. This is a proven mathematical process of approximating a population's answer to a question. But if you thought the difference was 5%, then you would certainly be greatly challenged to even begin to understand the rest of this.

[Jenny Hanniver]

Who cares what Republicans and NeoCon(federate)s think? I'm grateful that you're out of there, and, in fact, this survey sounds suspiciously like another of your cooked-up NeoCon lies.

Go home, you old fat foolish has-beens, and let a caring, responsible and dynamic young president lead the way into a better future.

[Larry Benjamin]

Dear LA Times:
You have been given a great tip on how to cut costs - Eliminate useless articles with shaky math that damage the credibility of your paper and organization.

Is that a contract buyout / early retirement that I smell?

[ARH]

Claudia and Phil D...showing the depths of your ignorance.

[Bruce Martin]

A useless poll is meaningless. No man ever did more damage to this country than GWBush and his bunch of henchmen, except his father, who led us into near depression in '87 - 91.
More Bushes in the White House? Are we all crazy? Give a Harvard educated man who actually took his exams a chance (vs. Bush, who paid cronies to take them - documented).
And that sleaze-ball Cheney and his secret government within a government - like to take a hunting trip with me?
PS - Rush Limbaugh is nothing more than an entertainer. Any views he might espouse are nothing more than that - supposed entertainment. As a lifelong REPUBLICAN voter (42 years) and contributor to the party, my dollars and votes have gone to the best man for the job this time around.
Give the man a chance - this is still the greatest country on earth.

[Edward Harold]

All this guy did was report the results of a survey! The man just pointed out that Obama's approval ratings according to a statistical sampling are down. These kind of statistics are meaningless anyway - which seems to be the obvious conclusion of the article.

Obama is not in fact a Black president. He is half white and largely raised in a white family. So why are you freaking out and talking about revenge on "Old Whitey"? Obama would deplor your hate spewing - He stands for unity and the future not old grudges from the past.

[larry]

as a government employee of 25yrs, i am glad i have only 5yrs more to watch people sit around and pull down salaries approaching 60 to 80K doing nothing but carrying around a cup of taxpayer funded coffee all day and complaining about payraises. if the taxpayer had any idea how little these people actually do, there would probably be major rebellions. daily i see a long column of cars comming through the gates at 8:30, which is 30minutes after reporting time. and another long column of cars leaving the gates 30minutes before quitting time. its truely disgusting. there is no one that i can see doing anthing to change this. god help us.