Two polls show modest gains for Obama following State of the Union address

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Fresh off his State of the Union address last week President Barack Obama has made a modest improvement with voters according to two major polls.

Gallup currently shows the President scoring a 50% approval rating from American adults, the first time he has reached the 50% mark in eleven days. Prior to the State of the Union Obama was at a less than desirable 47% average. Although this is not the first poll taken since his speech last week the three-point “bounce” measured falls in-line with Gallup’s assertion that President’s generally see little impact from their big national addresses. The topic was covered with greater depth in an

article last week.

Rasmussen Reports hails the recent State of the Union address as giving the President a “significant bounce” meanwhile. The polling methodology used by Rasmussen differs somewhat from that of Gallup. First off Rasmussen tracks “likely” voters instead of using a more general pool of nationwide adults to sample like Gallup. Secondly while they both show general approval ratings Rasmussen places a greater emphasis on those who “strongly” approve or disapprove and their net approval index rating reflects that data.

President Obama has struggled for months in the area of strong support against strong opposition according to Rasmussen, but his most recent approval measured at a negative four-percent is the best approval index achieved in over seven-months. Obama’s overall approval rating stands at 49%, down a point from yesterday. The number of those strongly approving of his job performance has shot up eight-points to 35% however. 39% of likely voters still disapprove of the President but the number that do so strongly has decreased by three-points since before his speech last Wednesday night.

Since the beginning of the New Year Gallup has measured President Obama’s approval rating between 47-52% every day. Rasmussen meanwhile has not measured the level of strong opinions in the plus column since last June when Obama was at +2% for the month. The President’s numbers bottomed out in December with a net approval index of -15%. For the now completed month of January Rasmussen tracked a modest up tick of one-percentage point (-14%) for Obama, still far below his peak rating of +23% for the month he entered office last January.

The most recent poll from CBS News conducted a week before the State of the Union address gave the President a 50% approval and 40% disapproval rating amongst adults. CBS also polled on the speech itself and found positive feedback from 83% of viewers on Obama’s performance. More polling from other organizations, perhaps to be released in the coming days, is welcomed if we are to give proper weight and perspective to recent surveys from Gallup and Rasmussen. It will also be worth focusing on those specific pollsters to see if the modest bump the President received from Gallup and the more significant one being measured by Rasmussen is simply the result of statistical noise, a blip on the radar, or part of a growing trend.

PHOTO CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS / NICK WASS