The first chart is the approval index, the percentage of respondents strongly approving of President Obama less the percentage of respondents strongly disapproving. The index on August 31 was -11 (30% strongly approving; 41% strongly disapproving).
The second chart contains the sample data; green is strongly approving; red is strongly disapproving; black contains the “uncommitted” - those who approve or disapprove, but not strongly. As above, the trend lines are second-order polynomial fits projected 90 days into the future.
Of interest are the green and black trend lines. Strong approvals show signs of leveling out, indicating a hardening of opinion, which in turn suggests that Obama’s base may be on the order of 25% of the polled population. More interesting is the black curve representing the uncommitted, which is both decreasing and accelerating downward from my last update on August 19.
The third chart is a summary chart; total approvals and total disapprovals plotted together. The disapprovals still show a linearly increasing trend; disapprovals are accelerating downward as the uncommitteds are increasingly moving toward disapproval.
The data suggests to me that the anti-Obama sentiment is about more than healthcare, or energy policy, or tax policy. or federal spending. It may have started with with concern over stimulus spending, and certainly health care is an issue; but I believe what we’re seeing is a general revolt against big(ger) government and, further, that the revolt may have sufficient momentum to be unstoppable.
At least, I hope so.
No comments:
Post a Comment