Real Slippage

Recently, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs took a potshot at the Gallup tracking poll. Was he really questioning the poll's accuracy and reliability, or was he just trying to shoot the messenger?

I confess, I am a Gallup fan. Its surveys rank among the best of the best. However, nightly tracking polls, no matter who conducts them, tend to be erratic and make those of us who watch them very closely a bit neurotic. For those reasons, every Monday my office downloads the aggregated Gallup presidential approval numbers for the previous week -- both the overall numbers and the 41 demographic subgroups that Gallup releases. We plug those numbers into a spreadsheet and make charts for easier analysis.

Examining a sample size of 3,500 respondents for a week is much more useful than poring over a three-day sampling of 1,500 people. Movement in the larger group is much more meaningful.

So, close scrutiny of the Gallup data reveal that there has indeed been some movement in President Obama's job-approval numbers: The past three weeks of ratings are a notch or two lower than his scores during the previous three weeks. The tick down seems to have started a week or so after the unemployment rate climbed above 10 percent but before word leaked out that the president would be authorizing deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. And, of course, health care continued to dominate much of the news throughout this time. Unfortunately, all of this means that it is unclear precisely why his numbers have inched lower.

The president's approval ratings for the three weeks from Oct. 26 to Nov. 15 were 52 or 53 percent (midpoint 52.5), with his disapproval ratings ranging each week between 39 and 42 percent. For the following three weeks, November 16 though December 6, his approval numbers were 49 or 50 percent (midpoint 49.5), with disapproval between 42 and 44 percent. That hardly constitutes a free fall, but having just over 10,000 responses in one numerical range and then having the next 10,000 interviews come in 3 points lower is noteworthy. The decline in approval varied from one subgroup to another, but Obama's standing fell across all 41 subgroups. Approval of his job performance declined least among Americans with annual household incomes of $90,000 or more.

In the first of those three-week periods, the president's approval rating among Democrats stayed in the 84-to-88 percent range, and then dropped to 82 percent for each of the next three weeks. Among independents, the president's approval ratings held at 50 percent for the first two weeks, then dropped to 48 percent for the third week, and fell to 44 percent for the following two weeks before ticking up 2 percentage points for the final week. Among Republicans, the decline was less marked.

Obama has lost more ground among moderates than among ideologues, and more among conservative Democrats than within any of the five other ideological, partisan combinations that Gallup monitors. Among moderates, Obama's approval rating started the six-week period at 64 percent and ended at 59 percent. Among conservative Democrats, his rating was 77 percent, 74 percent, and 79 percent for the first three weeks. But in the second three, it ranged between 70 and 71 percent.

One of Obama's most pronounced drops was among young adults (ages 18 to 29). Their support went from the 63-to-66 percent range in the first three weeks to the 59-to-61 percent range in the second. In the East, a 55-to-58 percent range gave way to a 51-to-55 percent range. Among college graduates, Obama's support spent three weeks in the mid-50s and then three at 51 percent.

With a myriad of economic statistics, job summits, troop increases, and health care battles all churning the public opinion waters, it is impossible to say precisely which one thing or combination hurt the president. But his standing in the polls has clearly deteriorated a bit.

Many of Obama's most ardent supporters are apoplectic over his plan to substantially increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan, while some of his most vociferous critics find themselves uncomfortably agreeing with him on one or more issues.

The confusion that makes survey-watching especially fascinating right now could also be making the Obama White House irritable. And, as the year draws to a close, everyone should be on the lookout for a flood of polls from major news organizations.