Gallup’s daily tracking poll gives Barack Obama a positive approval rating – 47/45 – for the first time since June. What does it mean? Not too much, actually. In laters December, as voters turn a little less attention to politics (as they should, Washington is laying totally fallow), presidents often bounce a little bit. In 2010, after his party had just suffered an historic election defeat, Obama got a sort of Christmas bounce.
Compare this to the trend of December 2011.
Obama started higher in 2010, and ended a couple of points higher. He started at 40 percent in December 2011, which makes the bounce look much more impressive. At the risk of making the punditry-negating statement that ruins all polling analysis, these holiday trends matter less than whether or not voters feel like unemployment is falling in November 2012.
Don’t Get Too Excited About the Obama Poll Bounce
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