Obama Approval Now at 60%--Or Is It?

President Barack Obama (Courtesy: AP)

Could it be that Obama is now starting to see that bump in the polls everyone suspected after UBL's demise? Just yesterday, it was reported that Obama was only getting a three point approval bump. Now, today, we are told that polls show Obama with 60% job approval and and 53% believing he should be reelected. Which one is true?

The problem with polls are that the results can be misleading if you don't look closely at the details. It is not that AP necessarily did anything underhanded or shady. They rightly admit that their poll was a poll of adults. In other words, they did not take into account party identification when deciding whom to call. However, each adult who was called was asked to self-identify their partisan affiliation. The results of this question should tell us a great deal about the actual results.

If the breakdown in party identification comes out being similar to what turnout is expected to be, the results tell us a great deal. However, if the results are so skewed to one side that it isn't even feasible to assume that the turnout could ever be that way, we don't really come to understand that much.

Unfortunately, the results of this AP poll are in the latter category. 46% self-identified as a Democrat or Democrat leaner. That is compared to only 29% identifying Republican or Republican leaning. 4% were Independents and 20% didn't know.

So, unless the 2012 breakdown is expected to be 46% Democrat, 29% Republican, 4% Independent, and 20% Undecided, these poll numbers tell us absolutely nothing.

About the only thing we did learn from this poll is that people really approve of George W. Bush--including many Democrats. We know this because Bush's approval rating in this poll was 50% to 49%. We can learn something from this because the partisan makeup of the poll was very skewed against the former president yet he was still able to garner a positive result. This actually means that his approval is higher. Likewise, the skewed partisan affiliation in the poll likely means that President Obama's support is much lower.

Again, AP, through the poll itself, wasn't necessarily trying to fool the public. Even so, it could be said stories written by AP writers have done just that. Was that their intention? Who knows. What we do know is that the authors conveniently leave out the self-identified partisan breakdown of the respondents. So, was it a hatchet job--you decide!

You can check out the article put out by the AP here. Also, check out the National Review Online piece on debunking the AP poll.