Gallup’s latest data paints a potentially dire picture for Barak Obama, but not one so dire that it prevents Democrats from whistling past the graveyard.

To recap: Obama’s job approval is down to a miserable 38% in the latest Gallup Poll. But Democrats will point to the fact that his personal favorable ratings are still above 50% according to the latest Real Clear Politics average.

And, of course, Democrats will also point to low ratings for Republicans and argue that we’re headed to another Truman vs. “Do Nothing Congress” election.

So what is the truth?

Is Obama in deep trouble facing an electorate where fewer than two-in-five voters think he’s doing a good job?

Or is in relatively good shape facing an electorate where most voters still like him personally?

Fortunately, data analysis allows us to answer these questions without the need of guesswork or speculation. I asked the outstanding analysts at our company, Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research, to dissect both the relationship between approval ratings and electoral success and the relationship between personal favorables and electoral success.

Some notes before I detail these data:

• We’re looking at approval and favorables in the last poll before the election.

• o One thing we know is that standing in the summer of the off-year doesn’t necessarily determine standing by Election Day.
  • § For example, in the summer of 1991 almost seven in ten (69%) Americans approved of George H.W. Bush’s performance. By Election Day that number dropped to just 34%.
  • § In contrast, Ronald Reagan had a job approval of only 43% in August of 1983. By Election Day 1984, 58% of Americans approved of his performance.
• o We could compare to popular vote, but in the American system (at present) Electoral votes are what counts.
• o Data for this question only really goes back to the 1970s.
• o In comparison, we have Presidential polling data dating back to the 1940s.

• We are comparing approval or favorables to the percentage of the Electoral College vote a candidate captured.

• The now standard “favorable or unfavorable opinion” question is a relatively recent innovation in polling.

Now, the data:

First, a plot of Presidential Approval against Electoral College percentage.

While concepts like the trend line and the predictive power of job approval are interesting, sometimes the simplest analysis is the most valuable.

In this case, the result is simple and clear: exactly one President in the past ten who faced Election Day with a job approval below 50% was re-elected—Harry S. Truman in 1948.

Next: personal favorable ratings.

Two things stand out from this analysis:

1. Personal Approval ratings aren’t as clearly correlated with electoral success as are job approval ratings.
2. The President with the single highest personal approval ratings in our data set—Gerald Ford—failed to win on Election Day.

So what does all of this tell us? Three important findings:

1. We don’t know the answer yet.

a. Presidential approval can change substantially over the course of a year and we have more than a year between now and Election Day.

b. While President Obama’s is in deep trouble now, it is too early to make a prediction about his standing next November.

1. For most Presidents job approval and personal favorables are similar and a poorly regarded President loses while a well-regarded President wins.
2. While Democrats like to paint the picture that Obama can repeat Truman’s miraculous win of 1948, his ratings of the moment have more in common with Gerald Ford in 1946—a personally well-regarded President whose administration voters have judged a failure and who lost his bid for re-election.

Whether Barak Obama is the next Gerald Ford or if he’s just another President whose failures in office cost him re-election, this analysis suggests that without a substantial achievement to shift public opinion, from a polling perspective Obama looks much more like Gerald Ford than Harry Truman.

It’s no surprise that the dominant story these days is Presidential politics.  Between the Ames straw poll and Obama’s full-campaign-mode bus tour, the race for the White House in 2012 has been fully joined on both sides.

With all eyes on the Presidential race, the question of what happens to the House and Senate is almost an afterthought despite being just as important in terms of what happens with spending, the debt, and the economy.

Where there has been coverage of Congressional campaigns over the past few weeks, an interesting theme is developing: predictions that an “anti-incumbent wave” will cost members of both parties their seats.  The narrative goes something like this:

Voters are fed up with what’s going on in Washington.  They see brinksmanship on a government shutdown and then brinksmanship on the debt ceiling as signs that their elected representatives are no longer doing their jobs and want change.  The classic paradigm of voters wanting incumbents voted out, but no their incumbent, has broken down and now voters are ready to send their own Member packing.

The implication of this idea is that, regardless of the outcome of the Presidential race, Democrats may do better than expected in the House because there are more Republican incumbents to suffer voters’ wrath.  The immediate question that occurred to us is whether there is any evidence that this sort of thing might happen, or is it just a case of Democratic-aligned journalists whistling past the graveyard?

First let’s look at the evidence:

• Congress’s job approval ratings are at their lowest point in the last six years with 13% approving and 84% disapproving according to the most recent Gallup poll.
• In a recent CNN poll only 45% of Americans said that their Congressman deserved re-election compared to 48% who said they did not.
  • As is often the case, a much lower number (23%) said most members of Congress deserved re-election while almost three in four (72%) said they did not.

Those numbers are bad for Congress.  In fact, they are worse than numbers seen before any of the last three “wave” elections or those seen before 1994’s massive turnover in the House.  But they’re not such outliers that we can’t give them some context.

The table below shows Congressional job, approval-own incumbent re-elect, and the percentage of incumbents of each party who lost general elections for the elections in 2010, 2008, 2006, and 1994.

As you look at this table, it is important to understand what we’re showing and what we’re not.  We’re purposefully ignoring primary election losses—they matter to incumbents but it won’t help Democrats much if 2012 is like 2010 where a number of Republican incumbents lost primaries to candidates who went on to win the General Election.  We’re also purposefully ignoring races for open seats since there was no incumbent to be influenced by an anti-incumbent mood.

What we see in this table is that despite Congress getting poor marks from the American people before each election, there’s just not a case where that anger was taken out on incumbents of both parties equally:

• In the earliest two “wave” elections in the table, exactly zero incumbents from the party that gained power lost General Elections.
• In 2008 a few Democrats did lose seats but two of those were cases where Republicans regained seats lost due to scandal in 2006, one was a reversal of a special election result from just months earlier, and one was lost by a Democratic incumbent under federal indictment.
• In 2010, the only two Republican incumbents to lose in the General Election were the winner of a “scandal seat” from 2008 and another winner of a special election months earlier.

So to return to our initial question, should Democrats take solace in an anti-incumbent mood and the hope that voters will vote out incumbents of bother parties in large numbers to the benefit of the Democratic minority?  The evidence suggests that they shouldn’t.

While the Congressional approval and own-incumbent re-elect numbers are indeed “historic lows” as much of the reporting emphasizes, they are not substantially lower than previous “wave” elections.  Congressional approval is within ten points of where it stood before the last two elections and exactly ten points lower than the 1994 mark.  The own-incumbent re-elect score has dipped below 50%, but it is still within ten points of where it stood in 1994, 2006, and 2008.

Just because something hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it can’t happen.  But in trying to predict what might happen in 2012, we’re better served by looking at the data from previous elections than we are imagining some kind of outlier electoral event that might benefit Democrats.

Like many in Washington, we’ve been focused on the debt ceiling debate for the past several weeks.  The evolution of public awareness and opinion on that issue was fascinating to watch and the public opinion and electoral repercussions will continue to evolve over the coming weeks and months.

But, the debt ceiling issue has been resolved until after the 2012 elections.  So let’s refocus a bit on the three key stories that will matter most over the next few months.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

One thing the debt ceiling argument did well was take the focus off of the long-term challenges facing the economy.

With the threat, however credible, of an immediate melt-down if the ceiling were not raised, there was not much attention dedicated to the creeping indicators that the economy certainly isn’t improving and may even be weakening.

Now that the debt ceiling debate is done for the moment, we’ll see a renewed focus on jobs and the economy.  Just to recap, after 32 months in office and implementation of many of his key proposals Obama has achieved the following:

• 9.2% unemployment,
• GDP growth of just 1.3% in the second quarter of 2011 (which may well be revised down significantly, as Q1 growth was) following 0.4% in the first quarter.
• Continued and perhaps growing weakness in the housing sector,
• Troubling signs in consumer spending, and
• New worries about manufacturing.

No wonder then that across multiple polls released in July majorities of Americans still consider the economy and jobs to be the number one issue facing the country.

Now Obama and the Democrats have announced a “renewed focus on jobs.”

But we wonder what they plan to do.  Their signature remedy of spending a bunch of money didn’t work the first time and won’t pass a second time.  They seem fundamentally incapable of seeing that things like the health care bill, uncertainty over EPA regulations, uncertainty over financial regulations, and the overall looming threat of government over-reach is a big reason the economy is stalled.

So if they can’t do what they want and won’t admit they need to do what they should, perhaps what we should really expect is a “renewed focus on blaming George W. Bush, Republicans, and anyone else we can find for the fact that there aren’t more jobs.”

More Budget Battles

When Congress comes back to town in September, we’ll be right back into a fight over the budget.

While the debt ceiling debate did impose spending caps and set a roadmap for some cuts, it didn’t pass a budget.

One federal agency (the FAA) is now partially shut-down due to a failure to pass funding and the rest of the federal budget is due out this fall to avoid either another continuing resolution fight or a shutdown.

With many voters likely to be disappointed by the relative magnitude of the cuts in the debt ceiling deal and the likely failure to pass a long-term fix (like a Balanced Budget Amendment)—remember, according to a CNN poll from the middle of last month, 60% of Americans feel a BBA is going to be required to fix the problem long term—Republicans will be continuing the spending fight throughout budget season.

Fear and More Fear on the Campaign Trail

The general rule of thumb and of history is that the incumbent President and his Party own the economy.  For more on this, see the thorough review that political scientist John Sides put together here and in the posts linked to that one.

While the President will surely continue the strategy he began in his speech earlier this week and blame the problems facing the country on George W. Bush, Republicans, and anyone else who wanders across his path; history suggests that’s not going to help him much.

So as Democrats head home to talk to their constituents, don’t expect to hear much about the “accomplishments” of the past three years.  Don’t expect to hear much about plans for the future either.

Instead, we’ll hear a lot about the Paul Ryan Medicare proposal.  That’s right, Democrats are unlikely to open their mouths without talking about a single proposal from a bill that only ever passed one chamber of Congress and which is not a part of any current plan or proposal being advanced anywhere in Washington.

Why?

Because the only chance Obama and the Democrats really have in 2012, absent an economic miracle, is to somehow convince the average voter—and the average Senior voter in particular—that the only thing worse than their systematic and categorical failure to actually solve the biggest problems facing the country is what Republicans might do if they control both Congress and the White House.

Barack Obama ran a campaign in 2008 that, at least superficially, was built on the value proposition that we should move beyond the partisan battles that characterized the previous decades of American politics and instead return to shared set of values to guide our government through compromise.

We all know that the policies that Obama advocated, and subsequently enacted, were far more partisan and ideologically liberal than those of any President since the early-to-mid 20^th century.  But here we’re concerned with his rhetoric which went beyond typical “moderacy” to moot the idea of a politics beyond ideology.

Over the first part of his Administration, we have seen Obama move sharply away from this rhetoric and combine the rhetoric of the liberal community organizer he once was to lash out against convenient bogeymen like “big oil companies” and “the rich” with what appear to be the candid grumblings of the frustrated college instructor that he also once was who doesn’t understand why all of these dunces just don’t agree with him.

In his speech last night we saw a brief return to the rhetoric of post-partisanship, but spoiled by a desperate attempt to shift blame and demonize his opposition.

We at Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research analyzed the text of Obama’s speech and categorized each element in terms of its theme and rhetorical purpose.  Here are the results:

President Obama’s attempt to return to post-partisan themes and appeal to values of compromise—values that we are inculcated with from the time we’re in elementary school—occupied approximately two-fifths of his speech and was his most major theme.

But Obama couldn’t quite contain his other instincts and stick to the rhetoric of the image he wants to re-build.  He led the speech with blame shifting—putting the responsibility for the crisis that he largely created on everyone but him.

Obama blamed George W. Bush, he blamed Republicans overall, and he blamed those vague and unnamed forces that he seems to believe control the economy.

Obama’s choices apparently weren’t his, you see.  They were forced upon him.

When Obama returned to blame shifting later in the speech, he shifted from defense to offense and attacked Republicans in Congress for not doing what he wants.

In total, Obama spent nearly one-quarter of the speech shifting blame in one way or another.

We also saw a return of community organizer Barack Obama lashing out against “the rich” and greedy corporations with rhetoric that resurrects the class warfare of the 1980s and before.

Obama spent 20% of his speech attacking the rich and different types of businesses and arguing that we should fix the debt problem on the backs of those convenient targets.

The rest of the speech contained arguments about economic stability and shared sacrifice.  Those minor themes combined didn’t equal the amount of time Obama spent on any of the major themes.

Last night we saw what was, effectively, the first major speech of the Obama re-elect campaign.

Based on this one example, we should expect Obama to veer between attempts to once again define himself as a post-partisan and a return to his roots in attack politics and class warfare.

As we analyzed this speech, we were reminded of another famous Presidential address by a President who had established a non-traditional political brand and now found himself under fire.  So we found a transcript and analyzed that speech.  Here are the results:

The year was 1979 and the President was Jimmy Carter.

While Carter’s speech was a little heavier on the blame shifting (mostly to OPEC) than it was on his rhetorical brand as the empathetic and connected President, the mix of defensiveness and an attempt to recapture his former brand seems eerily familiar.

The one difference between the two speeches is that Carter spent almost one-quarter of his address on patriotic themes and language.  Obama barely touched on those themes.

Also, Carter had a six-point plan.  Obama didn’t propose any plan at all.

So make that two differences.

While President Obama claims that 80% of Americans want to see their taxes increased to address the Federal deficit, Congress continues to debate raising the debt ceiling and we close in on the highly publicized August 2nd deadline to avoid a government default, there are several points that need to be made to keep claims of public support in context.

First, significant numbers of Americans aren’t convinced this whole issue is really a big deal and they don’t trust the people telling them it will be a disaster. Only 12% have confidence in what Congress says, 19% in big business, 23% in banks, and 27% and 28% in what they hear from TV and print media outlets.

Second, to a lot of people who share the sentiments of the Tea Party this sounds a lot like the same groups of people who gave us Wall Street banks, car companies, big businesses, and state governments looting the treasury now threatening us with dire consequences if we don’t let them do it again.

It is a hard sell to convince these individuals that the Federal Government should be allowed to borrow yet more money when they believe so much money has already been wasted.

This has led to Americans being split on the issue. Despite the drumbeat of messaging from the Administration, Wall Street, and the press, 46% of Americans say the debt ceiling should be raised and 49% say it should not.

Lastly, there is a lot of evidence out there showing that August 2nd, much like the deadlines floated previously, is artificial. The more Republicans in Congress become convinced this is true, the more they are sure that it’s just a way for the President to force an increase without addressing spending or the deficit.

Furthermore, American voters tend to agree with this point of view. A recent CBS news poll showed that a majority of Americans (51%) say the US probably wouldn’t default on its debt if the ceiling weren’t raised.

There are also a small, but important, number of voters and legislators who believe that the end-game of not raising the debt ceiling is a partial government shut-down rather than a default.

If that’s true, it gives Libertarian and Tea Party-leaning voters and officials what they’ve wanted all along and they’re not eager to compromise if all that happens is an immediate and massive spending cut.

While Michele Bachmann got all the headlines, the real news from the most recent Des Moines Register survey is that there is still room for additional candidates to join the race. The survey, conducted June 19-22 interviewed 400 likely GOP caucus goers on their preferences for Republican candidates for President.

Michele Bachmann deserved the headlines she received.  She is statistically tied with Mitt Romney (Romney 23%/Bachmann 22%) and has the highest favorables in the field (65% favorable/31% very favorable).

Despite Bachmann’s showing in the Des Moines Register Survey, the number that jumps out is that only 14% of Iowa Republicans say that their Presidential choice is finalized.  This means that Iowa Republicans are still very open to other options in the Republican nomination for the Presidency.  In fact, 69% of those who make a choice on the nomination say that they could be persuaded to support a different candidate from the one they are currently backing.

This is important for potential Republican candidates such as Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, both potentially heavy hitters in the Iowa caucuses.

While Bachmann presently is the beneficiary of the Tea Party label and support; that becomes a much more difficult territory to defend should established Tea Party favorites like Rick Perry of Sarah Palin throw their hats in the ring. Bachmann may have gotten to them first in the early polling, but only time will tell whether the Tea Partiers will return to their first loves or stick with the new kid on the block.

Looking forward to the general election, likely Republican caucus goers are fairly confident that there is already a candidate in the announced field who is capable of defeating Barack Obama in the general election.  Eighty-six percent of likely caucus goers say that there is at least one candidate who can beat the current President while only seven percent say that there is not currently a candidate who can defeat the President.

The Iowa Caucus are still a long way off and a lot can change between now and next February.  Current data out of Iowa suggests that is a strong possibility.  Bachmann has made an impressive early showing in the state, but the key question will be whether she can solidify her support quickly enough to survive what will surely be a strong challenge from a still developing Republican field.

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In yet another sign that the President will be facing a very tough reelection campaign, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows that 48% of Americans believe that we are likely to enter a new Great Depression within the next year.

Not coincidentally 48% of respondents in the same survey also say that a member of their household has lost their job within the past 12 months or that they are worried they will lose their job in the near future. As high unemployment rates drag on, the average time required to find new work has grown to just over 9 months, a level unprecedented since the Bureau of Labor statistics started tracking that data in 1948¹. If this trend persists, people will undoubtedly continue to become more pessimistic about the likelihood of an economic recovery.

Only one President since FDR has been reelected with an unemployment rate over 6%, Ronald Reagan in 1984, and he benefited from the end of skyrocketing inflation and growing job market leading into the election.

Even among those who have not been directly affected by the nation’s high unemployment rate are feeling the economic pinch every time they go to fill up their gas tank. The average price of Gas across the county has gone up $1.056 in the past year and more than doubled since president Obama took office². As a result another CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted April 29-May 1 found that 63% of Adults have cut back significantly on how much they drive and 58% have made significant cuts in overall household spending.

Combine these tangible impacts on the average voter with constant and conflicting stories in the media about the threat of government default if the federal debt ceiling is not raised as well as the seemingly unstoppable growth of the budget deficit, and you have a recipe for continued distrust of the President’s ability to turn the economy around, and a ripe opportunity for Republican candidates in 2012.

1. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/average-length-of-unemployment-at-all-time-high/

2. http://www.eia.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html