Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Thursday, May 23, 2013

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama's job performance. Fifty-one percent (51%) now disapprove.

Today’s figures include 25% who Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president and 41% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -16 (see trends).

This is the third straight day that Strong Disapproval of the president has reached 40%. It has reached that level only two other times in the past six months.

Results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update).

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner has entered the race to become New York City’s next Mayor. In the Democratic primary, Weiner starts in second place, six points behind the frontrunner Christine Quinn.

Thirty percent (30%) of voters believe the country is generally heading in the right direction.

Just over half of voters consider all three controversies surrounding the White House to be scandals. That includes the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, the Justice Department's secret subpoena of media telephone records and the events surrounding the death of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Libya last fall. Just over one-out-of-four considers each of the three to be embarrassing but not a scandal, while 12% or 13% consider each to be no big deal.

Nine-out-of-10 workers say they’d stick with a job they love rather than get paid more to take a job they hate.

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When it comes to the question of which party voters trust to deal with issues of government ethics and corruption, Republicans now have a two-point advantage.  That's a big change from two months ago when Democrats had an eight-point lead. 

In his weekly newspaper column, Scott Rasmussen says that “it's impossible to predict the lasting impact of the controversies now besetting the Obama administration.” However, he notes that the president “has spent his public career trying to build faith in the federal government.” That effort, difficult to achieve before the latest news stories, now appears doomed.

On this weekend’s episode of What America Thinks,  Scott reviewed the initial public reaction to the IRS, Justice Department and Benghazi controversies. The weekly television show airs on 64 stations nationwide. Find a station near you.

If you’d like Scott to speak to your organization, meeting or conference, please contact Premiere Speakers.  Rasmussen Reports is a media company whose work is followed by millions on a wide variety of platforms. We regularly release our work at RasmussenReports.com, through a daily email newsletter, a nationally syndicated TV show, a nationally syndicated radio news service, an online video service and a weekly newspaper column distributed by Creators Syndicate.

To get a sense of longer-term job approval trends for the president, Rasmussen Reports compiles our tracking data on a full month-by-month basis.

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Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (see methodology). Pollsters for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have cited our "unchallenged record for both integrity and accuracy."

Learn more about the Rasmussen Reports track record over the years.

Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. To reach those who have abandoned traditional landline telephones, Rasmussen Reports uses an online survey tool to interview randomly selected participants from a demographically diverse panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results are available for Platinum Members.