Obama's Approval Rating at a 5- Month High, According to Gallup Poll
For the first time since July, President Barack Obama's approval ratings are higher than his disapproval ratings.
According to the latest Gallup Poll, about 47 percent of Americans approve of the way the President is doing his job, while 45 percent disapprove of his job performance. The three-day tracking poll was conducted on Dec. 21-23. The last time that Obama's approval rating was higher than his disapproval rating was during Gallup’s July 7-9 tracking period.
Gallup’s research comes from the "world's leading scientists in management, economics, psychology, and sociology," according to their website. Gallup consultants "assist leaders in identifying and monitoring behavioral economic indicators worldwide."
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The polling was finalized Dec. 23, the same day House Republicans finally agreed to a two-month payroll tax cut which would extend 2011 rates for 160 million American workers for the first two months of the new year. House Republicans had initially argued that they would not allow the payroll tax cuts unless it became a long term one-year plan and not a short-term, potentially unstable plan.
Seemingly, the plan which Obama and the majority of Congress supported played a major role in the increase. But Obama's approval could have gone up because of several other indicators.
President Barack Obama’s approval ratings are showing signs of rebounding following some recent positive economic data and after months of aggressively promoting his jobs plan and criticizing his Republican opposition.
Business Week reported this month that 49 percent of Americans approve Obama’s job performance according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll and another CNN poll. The rate had also briefly jumped following reports of Osama bin Laden’s death this May.
While the majority of Americans still disapproved of the president’s job performance as far as the economy, the margin narrowed from a 23-point spread last month according to Businessweek.
In a conference last Thursday, Boehner said that he believed House Republicans were doing right by the American people by simply asking for more discussion on a more long term arrangement than the $33 billion Senate bill.
The Senate had just passed a two-month extension of the payroll tax and then the House passed its own year-long extension on Dec. 13.
“Politics will be politics. Our team believes it’s always right to do the best thing,” Boehner said at a news conference Thursday morning.
“Everybody’s already agreed that the best policy is the one year extension of these policies. All we’re fighting for is what everybody has already agreed to. Let’s sit down and resolve the differences,” he added.
Political analysts and prominent Republicans such as John McCain have criticized Boehner’s actions, saying they will surely lead to a Republican loss in the 2012 presidential election.
