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Obama's Second-Term Ratings: A Continuous Spiral Down
Friday, January 3, 2014 09:52 PM
By: Cathy Burke
President Obama's second term has been marked by steadily dropping job approval ratings, a Gallup monthly chart released Friday shows.
The president ended 2013 with an average 41 percent approval rating in December, unchanged from November, the survey noted.
But Obama's month-to-month rates crept consistently lower through most of the year, including a sharp 3-point drop in March, the analysis showed.
Gallup noted controversies involving the IRS, the National Security Agency and the rough rollout of the Affordable Care Act all likely contributed to the poor showing.
In its breakdown, Gallup noted Obama's approval rating averaged 52 percent, in what would be his yearly high — despite a dip into the 40s after his gun control proposals following the Newtown, Conn., school shootings.
The February average was 51 percent, but it sank to 48 percent in March following the budget sequestration. His rating improved in April to 49 percent, where it held in May as well, Gallup said.
But in June, when reports of the National Security Agency spy program surfaced, based on documents leaked from ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Obama's approval took another hit, averaging 47 percent and then sinking a point per month, hitting 44 percent in September, the poll showed.
October's government shutdown and the disastrous rollout of Obamacare pushed the ratings slide further, Gallup said; in late October "Obama brushed up against his own record-low approval rating of 38 percent" from 2011, Gallup noted. He ended the month with a 43 percent average.
Gallup noted a historical precedent for further decline after years of ratings drops; President George W. Bush saw a big decline in his fifth year in office amid the increasingly unpopular Iraq War, and his ratings never rebounded, Gallup said.