Obama Approvals Jump

A fresh Gallup poll finds that in the wake of his speech to Congress, President Obama's approval ratings jumped significantly after tailing off a bit last week.

February 18-20: 63% approve/24% disapprove
February 21-23: 59/25
February 24-26: 67/21

It seems that Obama got a nice boast from his nationally-televised speech at a time when it was sinking a bit, perhaps because of the stimulus fight in Congress. I think that it is fair to say that his approvals had been high already, but at +46, he is doing as well as a President can do. I guess the honeymoon period continues.

The split by party is pretty interesting

Democrats
Feb. 18-20: 89% approve
Feb. 21-23: 86%
Feb. 24-26: 90%

Independents
62-54-62

Republicans
27-27-42

As you can see, Obama's most recent jump gave from a nice rise among indies and Republicans, while he still enjoys near-universal support from Democrats. I don't think there is much chance that Obama will have high numbers from GOPers for too long, but if he can maintain his standing with independents, that may not matter.

For its part, the weekly Daily Kos/R2K poll finds that Obama's latest split is 71/25 (+46), after being 69/26 (+43) a week ago. The +46 mirrors Gallup's finding. Also of interest is that the approval ratings for congressional Dems went from 41/53 (-12) to 46/45 (+1) over the same time period, while congressional GOPers went from 18/70 (-52) to 17/68 (-51).

I think that these numbers confirm not just Obama's strength, but that his positive numbers are being imputed by many Americans to congressional Dems. Republicans in Congress, however, remain deeply unpopular. If these pitiful numbers persist at such low levels, GOP leadership might need to re-evaluate its guerilla tactics against the new administration. Personally, I would not expect that move even if GOP approval was 2/95, but it is something John Boehner, Eric Cantor and the boys should start pondering nonetheless.