Obama’s 47 Percent Approval Lowest of Any President at This Point

President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.

FoxNews.com
December 8, 2009

President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.

The new low comes as Obama enters the home stretch in his push to enact his signature initiative, an overhaul of the nation’s health care system, and escalates America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war.

The rating led White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to unload on the venerable polling agency on Tuesday.

“If I was a heart patient and Gallup was my EKG, I’d visit my doctor,” Gibbs told reporters. “Five days ago there was an 11-point spread, now there is a 1-point spread. I’m sure a six-year-old with a Crayon could do something not unlike that. I don’t put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is daily Gallup trend. I don’t pay a lot of attention to the meaninglessness of it.”

Below are comparable ratings for other presidents since Gallup began taking presidential approval polls in 1938:

— George W. Bush, 86 percent
— Bill Clinton, 52 percent
— George H.W. Bush, 71 percent
— Ronald Reagan, 49 percent
— Jimmy Carter, 57 percent
— Gerald Ford, 52 percent
— Richard Nixon, 59 percent
— Lyndon Johnson, 74 percent
— John Kennedy, 77 percent
— Dwight Eisenhower, 69 percent
— Harry Truman, 49 percent

Franklin Roosevelt had been in office more than five years before Gallup began taking presidential approval polls. During his remaining years as president, Roosevelt never fell below 48 percent.

The poll is an average of a three-day tracking of 1,529 adults taken Dec. 4-6. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

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