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The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama's job performance. Fifty-two percent (52%) disapprove... The latest figures include 28% who Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president and 44% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -16. The president’s job approval rating has been slipping over the last few days as the shutdown/debt ceiling struggle continues. The number who Strongly Disapprove of Obama’s job performance is at its highest level since early November of last year.

The government shutdown has made it abundantly obvious that the anti-conservative news media and the anti-conservative Republican establishment have joined together to the point where it's almost impossible to see where one ends and the other begins. Some might say they merge every day on the set of "Morning Joe." The media have designated as Public Enemy No. 1 a recalcitrant bloc of tea party stalwarts who have declared their intention to stop Barack Obama's statist juggernaut from imposing the Obamacare monstrosity, running up trillion-dollar deficits year after year and in so doing destroying the private sector. Amazingly, liberal Republicans...

Sometimes polls state the obvious. Sometimes they surprise. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal and Gallup surveys, which landed late last week during the government shutdown, did both. Republican pollster Bill McInturff and Democratic pollsters Peter Hart and Fred Yang conducted the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. All are longtime practitioners, but even they seemed startled by the findings. McInturff wrote in an analysis, “Overall, this is among the handful of surveys that stand out in my career as being significant and consequential.” Hart called the findings “jaw-dropping.”

I tried googling for some answers, but I think my question is too vague. I am the proud new dog owner of an adorable five-year-old female dachshund mix. I've worked with dogs for the last eight years in a medical setting, but have never had one of my own. Can I (or more to the point is it advisable to) bring my Lady with me on election day when I hand out sample ballots for my precinct? What kind of political activities are dog-friendly, and which should be avoided? Also, any recommendations for colorful doggie t-shirt/sweaters? Six in the morning...

Weird things happen in Boulder Colorado — it has a gorilla run to support apes in Uganda, locals dash around naked wearing pumpkin heads Halloween night (sorry, not offering up a link) and let’s just say 4/20 is the locals’ favorite date. Despite the city’s liberal background, students at the University of Colorado Boulder on Tuesday blamed President Obama and Democrats more than the GOP for the partial government shutdown. “Everybody is blaming Obama and the Democrats, is this normal?” Caleb Bonham of Campus Reform asked after several undergraduates quickly identified the culprit. “Um, no I don’t think so but...

She’s reportedly waiting until 2014 before she starts thinking about 2016, but Hillary Clinton, according to one national poll, is your frontrunner for the White House — by a wide margin.And Elizabeth Warren is your fastest rising star.The former secretary of state and first lady dominated last week’s new Quinnipiac University survey, which showed her gobbling up 61 percent of support and beating any Republican challenger — be it New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul or Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — by anywhere from 13 to 23 points.

Those of you who are supposedly outraged or indignant over the partial government shutdown, or have friends or neighbors who are outraged or indignant, I can tell you all how YOU can fix it. All you have to do is tell pollsters who call that you think Obama and the Democrats are responsible for the shutdown. As soon as that hits the papers, the shutdown will be over before the end of the day. That is because it is Obama and the Democrats who shut down the government, because they are so certain that the Republicans will be blamed for...

A striking aspect of the new Pew survey on Jewish Americans is how liberal Jews are. Is it good for the Democrats? You bet.Why do people vote the way to do? For swing voters, the answer is usually the state of the economy. For most, however, voting patterns are surprisingly fixed. People tend to vote for one party consistently over time. For Jewish American voters, the party of choice has been the Democratic party. Conservatives have been trying to crack the code for a number of years on how to get Jewish voters over to their side. Based on the...

“Swing voters.” “Independent voters.” “Low-information voters.”President Obama’s re-election campaign engaged in a sophisticated microtargeting effort that, among other things, aimed TV ads at viewers of late-night comedy, ESPN and the TV Land network. In other words, the president’s campaign deliberately sought potential voters who were apathetic, disengaged from politics and current affairs, whose lack of interest in (and consequent ignorance of) the political process made them “persuadable” to Obama. This is how you get weird exit-poll results like 18% of Ohio voters who described themselves as “conservative” voting for Obama. Obama was re-elected with a hurricane-force tailwind of ignorance, by...

A solid majority of Americans support a federal law that would ban discrimination by employers based on someone’s sexual orientation, according to a polling memo shared with POLITICO. Conducted by Republican pollster Alex Lundry in conjunction with the Americans for Workplace Opportunity campaign, the poll shows that a large majority of voters already think there is some version of an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that makes workplace discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation illegal. A majority support such a law across the states, according to a novel modeling approach by Lundry, including in places like Arizona and Arkansas. And...

Today, more than three and a half years after the Democrats passed Obamacare into law, the overhaul’s exchanges — its East German–like government marketplaces — will finally, sort of, open for business. The Democrats fully expect their fellow Americans to be so excited about buying government-approved insurance through these government-run exchanges that they’re choosing to shut down the government rather than delay the individual mandate for a year. Better to shut down the government, it would seem, than let Americans freely decide — even for a year — whether or not to buy Obamacare-based insurance. Alas, the individual mandate’s penalties...

<p>TRENTON -- A new poll finds the race for U.S. Senate in New Jersey has tightened.</p> <p>The Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday shows 53 percent back Democratic Newark Mayor Booker, while 41 percent support former Bogota Mayor Lonegan. The special election is scheduled for Oct. 16.</p>

President Obama's job approval rating is just 43 percent now, down slightly from earlier this month and the lowest since March 2012. Forty-nine percent disapprove, the highest it has been in two years. His approval rating among women has dropped since earlier in September, from 49 percent to 43 percent now. Positive assessments of the president's handling of the economy has also dropped five points in the last two weeks, to 41 percent now. Just 40 percent approve of his handling of foreign policy, while 49 percent disapprove

Poll on lower right

A Gallup poll released last week revealed good news: Americans’ confidence in the federal government’s ability to handle foreign and domestic problems has reached an all-time low. In both areas, a minority of those polled said that they had either a great deal or fair amount of confidence in Uncle Sam. Yes, I said that’s good news. Skepticism of government is as American as apple pie. The experiment that is the United States was borne out of a colonial revolution against an overbearing master. As the decades have passed, however, the federal government has steadily acquired powers that are vastly...

Add this to the list of things Ed Schultz can't understand: why Americans think so poorly of President Obama. Schultz opened his MSNBC show today by bemoaning a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in which by a 45/52% margin Americans disapprove of the prez's handling of the economy. "I just can't believe this number," emoted Ed. Of course Schultz had a scapegoat. "It's the fault of "a lot of negative campaigning in the media. That is the Republican conservative effect." So blinded is he by Obama adoration that Ed actually lamented "it amazes me that people don't love Obama." Gee,...

President Obama acknowledges there are some glitches as his massive ObamaCare reorganization launches. And one major problem is, contrary to the Democrat's confident prediction when signing it, the more Americans learn about his signature transformation of the United States, the less they like it. Much less. A new CNN/ORC International Poll just out shows that today a strong majority of Americans oppose most or all of the plan's provisions, now scheduled to begin registering Americans on Oct. 1. While support for the so-called Affordable Care Act has plunged by 23%, or 12 points. In January a majority of Americans, 51%,...

As Barack Obama begins his second term in office, trust in federal government remains mired near a historic low and frustration with government remains high.

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We’ll start with Pew. The good news for O? Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats and a near majority of independents agree with him that there’s “clear evidence� that Assad used chemical weapons against civilians. (Are they right about that? Hmmmmm.) Of those who do believe the evidence is clear, support for airstrikes is even with opposition at 41 percent apiece. That’s in line with other, older polls showing that public backing for intervening in Syria soars once you introduce WMD into the equation. To the extent O can convince the public that Assad really did gas hundreds of people...

We noted last month than Congress is less popular than North Korea, cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesmen, Genghis Khan, Communism, BP during the Gulf oil spill, Nixon during Watergate or King George during the American Revolution. The Washington Post notes today that a Syria intervention is less popular than Congress. So that means that the American people would much rather get a root canal or a colonoscopy than bomb Syria. Indeed, while John Kerry announced today that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, Reuters noted: The polls suggest that so far, the growing crisis in...

Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria's government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says. About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria's civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act. More Americans would back intervention if it is established that chemical weapons have been used, but even that support has dipped in recent days - just as Syria's civil war has escalated and the images of hundreds...

One word, my friends: RINOgeddon. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Christie earns 21% support when Republican voters are asked whom they would vote for if the party’s primary in their state were held today. Florida Senator Marco Rubio runs a close second with 18% of the GOP vote, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 16% and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul with 15% of the vote. Congressman Paul Ryan, the unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, picks up 13% of the Republican vote, with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dead last at six percent (6%)....

THE second week of the federal campaign is under way, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd facing accusations that he cheated in last night's debate by referring to notes. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott goes into the second week of the campaign in a promising position, with most commentators declaring him the stronger performer in the debate and the latest Newspoll, published in The Australian today, showing he has narrowed Mr Rudd's lead as preferred Prime Minister from 14 points to nine points.

Rent free in their empty heads. There would be no home field advantage in Alaska for Sarah Palin if the former governor made a run for the White House in 2016, according to a new poll released Friday. Hillary Clinton, the front runner for the Democrats in 2016, would beat Palin 49-40 in a hypothetical match-up, according to a survey from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. Palin is the only potential GOP candidate Clinton topped in poll. Despite it being her home state, only 18 percent of Alaskans think Palin should make a bid for the White House in 2016,...

"Today... I'm proud to be an American.” – Robert Zimmerman Jr., on Twitter, following his brother's acquittal An ABC News-Washington Post poll reveals that a full two-thirds of white Americans believe that Trayvon Martin’s killing was justifiable. Therefore, that same two-thirds of white folks also believe that George Zimmerman's acquittal in the second degree murder trial against him was also justifiable. Historian and activist Paul Street writes in BlackAgendaReport.com that these poll numbers reflect the “separateness in perspective that reflects very real, savage, and profound, literal segregation” of the races in America. “That’s a lot more than just the segment...

In a wide-ranging interview with The New Republic published Tuesday, Sen John McCain (R-AZ) praised former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, his running mate in the 2008 presidential race, for "exciting" the GOP base in a way the senator couldn't achieve. Asked if it "bothered" him when people said his legacy was choosing Palin as his running mate in 2008, McCain said "no." "We were four points down when I chose her and three points up afterwards," he told the magazine. "She held her own and, some people said, won a debate with the vice president. She did everything I ever...

Gotta figure her lead would be even bigger without Joe Miller in the field here. Her nomination for the taking? Alaska should be a top tier pick up opportunity for Senate Republicans next year…but their top choice of a candidate is Sarah Palin. 36% of GOP primary voters in the state say they’d like Palin to be their standard bearer against Mark Begich to 26% for Mead Treadwell, 15% for Dan Sullivan, and 12% for Joe Miller. Palin leads mostly based on her strength with ‘very conservative’ voters where she gets 43% to 20% for Treadwell, but she also leads...

The O.J. Simpson criminal prosecution was doomed from the moment the trial was moved from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles, ensuring that the jury looked nothing like the two victims, legal pundits agree. Might the outcome of the George Zimmerman trial have been similarly predetermined - not because of race, but because of gender? That there is racial division in how people regard the Zimmerman verdict is evident, both anecdotally and in the data. Thousands of mostly African Americans have marched in protest since the not-guilty verdict, and now polling results evidence the division. Last week, a Washington Post/ABC...

dhensley813 wrote: The city of Chicago really had no option but to curtail the benefits of retirees. It's not as bankrupt as Detroit, but it was getting there. Obamacare wasn't so much the reason the city cut retiree insurance, as the excuse it gave them to say that they weren't really being dropped. - Obama Solves Mass-Layoff Problem by Laying Off Mass-Layoff Statistics Guys at BLS Dear Comrade 813, I think they had no choice once they negotiated a contract that allowed retirees to have benefits that the city knew it couldn’t afford. That’s outrageous enough. But to make matters...

Despite lower poll numbers, Obama is more powerful thanks to spineless GOP (Video)

Fox News just released a nationwide poll in generall in keeping with many others, finding voters are unhappy with the economy and want Obamacare repealed. But what's truly eye-opening are the comparisons of partisan opinions of President Barack Obama and George Zimmerman, who was acquitted July 13 of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges for shooting unarmed Miami Gardens 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012. Republicans have a more-favorable opinion of Zimmerman, a figure of sympathy to a number of conservatives, than Obama. That's right: The Democratic occupant of the White House is held in less favorable regard by Republicans...

Next week I will participate in a racial discrimination hearing against a Manhattan night club that frisked and searched me when I attended on a "Black night" but does not search patrons on mostly white nights. Last week, I was accused of stealing an iPhone by a white woman in Miami who came up to me and asked if she could search my pockets to find it. It was not a joke or a pickup line. And just last month, I had to pull out my own iPhone to photograph and report the license plate and medallion number of a...

Currently 60% Yes

Over the last four years the negative attitude of Americans toward the US Supreme Court indicates it is less respected and trusted each year.

Complete Headline: Congress Is Less Popular than Cockroaches, Lice, Root Canals, Colonoscopies, Genghis Khan, Communism, King George Business Insider notes today: A June Gallup poll [showed that Congress] had a 10% approval rating [while] and one in March that showed North Korea with a 12% favorability rating among Americans. That’s nothing… We’ve previously documented that the U.S. Congress is less popular among the American people than cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesmen, Genghis Khan, Communism, BP during the Gulf oil spill, Nixon during Watergate or King George during the American Revolution. Postscript: While some wrongly assume...

A fascinating new poll is out today that shows Barack Obama's foreign policy approval rating has plummeted over the last two months. On May 1 the Quinnipiac poll found that 47 per cent of Americans approved of Mr Obama's handling of foreign policy, while 43 per cent disapproved. Two months later the same pollster has Mr Obama running a 12-point negative rating – 52 per cent disapprove, compared with 40 that approve. This is not about having naive expectations, but matching the expectations of the American public, who for all their war-weariness still feel in their bones (like it or...

Reading the comment section in all the blogs on Rachel Jeantel was, hmm, not-so utopian. I look at the GG demographic as progressive, open-minded people who value the fabrics of the American quilt, appreciate urban influence culture and would attend the same music festival. Unfortunately, life is not a concert. This trial is painful for all of us who strive for a highly tolerant diversified society. It’s not easy because we all move at different speeds and must practice patience while waiting on the same line. I would like to think that if we all have tickets, there might some...

Under our Constitution, unlike a parliamentary system, the chief executive has no direct relationship with Congress. He can, of course, veto legislation, but historically the president’s power has been judged to be largely a function of his personal stature. To the extent that a president holds sway over Congress, it is because he is popular with voters. The odd thing about Barack Obama is that he has never been a popular president. Yet somehow he was re-elected, and he continues to be taken seriously as a political force. This chart shows President Obama’s Approval Index, as measured by Rasmussen Reports,...

Back in January and February, Marco Rubio stood at the top of the heap among prospective 2016 Republican presidential contenders. Sen. Marco Rubio Today? Not so much. In the recently released Ipsos – Reuters poll, for example, Rubio has lost one third of the support he had earlier this spring and is now not even in the top three in the latest poll Ipsos conducted for Reuters. Marco now registers below Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and Jeb Bush. Another poll in Iowa, a key early voting state in the Republican presidential sweepstakes (conducted by Illinois-based pollster McKeon &...

As the Pentagon unveiled plans to reverse a ban on women serving on the front lines, a poll released Wednesday found that most registered voters believe women should be eligible for a military draft if one is reinstituted. The survey conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research shows that 59 percent believe women should be included if a draft becomes necessary again, compared to 38 percent who say they should not be included. The poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon and the news site CapitalSoup.com to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the U.S. military draft, according to the website.....

Young people are more Democratic and pro-Obama – but they're even more pro-liberty. The GOP should seize this chance.You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that the Republican party has a problem with the millennial generation. Americans born after 1980 voted by some 25pt for President Obama over Mitt Romney, while the rest of the electorate narrowly supported the Republican candidate. It's my view that Republicans can do little to attract most Millennials – but privacy may be the exception. Our Guardian poll conducted by Public Policy Polling indicated that Democrats were more supportive of President Obama's...

So it comes to this: After all that has been said about Barack Obama, in the end there is very little to say. You are either willing to overlook Barack Obama’s foibles and foolishness; or you aren’t. There is no middle ground. There is no saying for example “Well he’s kind of new in the job,” or “This is an example of one bad apple in his Cabinet,” or “The president didn’t know about it.” Going into his second term, you either knew what we had in Barack Obama or you didn’t. For myself, I’ve never been willing to overlook...

The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), a group headed by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, released a poll showing voters support for the controversial Common Core national standards in the state. The poll found more than “4 in 10” strongly support the national standards after being read a description of them. The exact question posed to participants was not provided by SCORE, the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, nor the newspaper that wrote a story, DNJ.com. What the poll proves is that the poll-tested language developed by the proponents of Common Core is working. Big surprise. Voters want...

ROCHESTER, N.Y., June 1 (UPI) -- Only a third of U.S. adults say they are very happy -- minorities show particularly pronounced declines in the past two years, a U.S. survey indicates. A Harris Poll of 2,345 U.S. adults surveyed online April 10-15 by Harris Interactive found certain groups, such as minorities, recent graduates and the disabled, trended downward in the last couple of years.

The economy has been stuck in a ditch for more than six years, and our national debt has exploded to unmanageable proportions. We have no coherent policy for dealing with conflicts in the Middle East, Africa or the Korean Peninsula. And scandals have erupted in the Internal Revenue Service, the State Department and the Justice Department. Moreover, the three things the president said he would focus on the most in his second term — jobs, immigration reform and global warming — get barely a mention by the White House. Those are not just my opinions. By clear majorities, most Americans...

Coming out of the weekend, after a brutal week for their president, the media held tight to a little lifeboat in an ocean of bad news: Polls from CNN and The Washington Post had Obama's approval rating at 53% and 50%, respectively. But Monday was a lifetime and countless revelations ago, and today, four newer polls all show Obama's approval rating sinking below 50%. Fox News has Obama upside down with 45% approving of the president and 51% disapproving. Rasmussen shows a similar trend with 46% - 53%; as does The Economist, 45% - 51%. Gallup sits at 49% -...

The president has a base of loyalists that won't quit and, at least for now, there's no evidence he was involved in any scandals. Another day, another poll showing that President Obama's job-approval rating is not collapsing under the weight of scandals and controversies. Why is he holding steady? Will it last? And will Republicans take any cues from his staying power? Given the noise level on Capitol Hill, cable TV, and social media, Obama's 50 percent-plus showings in recent polls from CNN, Pew, and ABC/Washington Post seem somewhat surprising. But two veteran political pollsters, one from each party, say...

I know that the President’s defenders have used recent job-approval polling to show that Americans don’t care about scandals in the administration, but except in the last few weeks of a presidential election, job-approval figures tend to be a lagging indicator. Michael Catalini explains that it takes a couple of months into a serious administration scandal before job-approval or personal-approval numbers will begin to slip: The break-in at the Watergate occurred in June 1972, five months before Nixon rode to a landslide reelection, but the scandal did not damage his approval ratings until after two aides were convicted of conspiracy...

Members of tea party claim the movement springs from and promotes basic American conservative principles such as limited government and fiscal responsibility. But new research by University of Washington political scientist Christopher Parker argues that the tea party ideology owes more to the paranoid politics associated with the John Birch Society — and even the infamous Ku Klux Klan — than to traditional American conservatism. Parker is the author, with fellow UW political scientist Matt Barreto, of a new book titled “Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America,” published this spring by Princeton University...