PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama's job approval rating is 46% for the week ending June 13, with an identical number disapproving. This matches the lowest weekly job approval rating of Obama's presidency, recorded two weeks earlier, and is slightly lower than the 47% from a week ago.
Two record-low three-day job approval ratings in the past week helped Obama's weekly average tie the lowest of his presidency. Gallup reported a 44% approval rating last Thursday and again on Saturday. Prior to last week, the lowest three-day approval figure for Obama in Gallup Daily tracking had been 45%, a percentage that has now been reached seven times since the start of April.
Democratic Approval Slips Below 80%
Approval of Obama has come down slightly among all three party groups since the start of May. However, the 79% approval among Democrats recorded in each of the past two weeks marks the first time Obama's weekly approval among members of his own party has fallen below 80%.
Bottom Line
As the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico grew in size and severity in May, President Obama saw his own weekly job approval rating slip from 50% to 46%. However, it has since stabilized at the lower level.
In contrast with earlier in the year, when Obama's approval dipped solely among independents and Republicans, the latest decline -- on the order of two to three percentage points -- is seen about equally with all three party groups.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking/the Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index survey June 7-13, 2010, with a random sample of 3,598 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.
For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each daily sample includes a minimum quota of 150 cell phone respondents and 850 landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents for gender within region. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, cell phone-only status, cell phone-mostly status, and phone lines. Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2009 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit https://www.gallup.com/.
