President Obama Hits 53%, His Highest Job Approval Rating in 3 Years

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:44 am

President at 53% Approval: Obama Gets Highest Job Approval Rating in 3 Years in New Poll

American voters approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance by 53-40 percent, his best approval rating in three years. By an even wider margin, 53 – 36 percent, “(T)hey trust the president and Democrats more than Republicans to avoid the “Fiscal Cliff,” according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

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The Quinnipiac University National Poll was conducted between November 28 – December 3 and used live interviewers to call both landlines and cells.

Obama got his job approval support from 90% of Democrats and 51% of Independents, with Republicans only giving him 8% approval. Obama also has more approval than disapproval from all income groups, including those making over $250k a year.

In June of 2009, Obama had his high of a 59% approval rating with 31% disapproval and in October of 2011, he faced his low with 41% approval rating to a 55% disapproval.

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, explained, “Nothing like winning an election to boost your job approval. President Barack Obama hasn’t had a score this good since his 52 – 40 percent approval rating May 5, 2011, right after the death of Osama bin Laden… This is only the second time in more than three years that President Obama has broken 50 percent. And voters see Republicans as more likely to be obstructionist, and have less confidence in their ability to come up with the right solution to the nation’s financial woes.”

The poll also shows Americans want to tax the rich (65-31%) and don’t want Medicare touched in the “fiscal cliff”, with 70-25% saying they don’t want cuts to Medicare spending.

In other words, Americans reject the Republican approach to balancing budgets. Not to suggest they reject a balanced approach, as 66% of Americans agree that we need to both generate more revenue via tax increases and cut spending. The issue then is cut spending on what. Exactly.

Even Republicans agree that signing a no-tax pledge as Republicans have done is a bad idea, with 85-10 % of Americans saying it’s a bad idea, including 77-15 % of Republicans agreeing.

The President has political capital to burn going into the fiscal cliff negotiations and there’s nothing Republicans can do about it. They lost the tax revenue issue when Obama made it a central part of his campaign. It also isn’t helping Republicans that their promises of trickle down glory from gifting the rich with less and less tax burdens never actually materialized.

The elected Tea Party Republicans bought their own angry tax rhetoric and are unwilling to give the public, including their own base of the Republican Party, what they want. Crazy much or do they only hear the most extreme voices, backed by the high dollars of the Koch brothers et al? The time has come to question whether or not the elected Republicans actually represent their own base at all, even in pretense.

Speaking of which, tea partyish-conservative media outlets are even waging war against Speaker John Boeher in hopes of getting everything done their way once again.

Sarah Jones

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