![FiveThirtyEight: Is Obama More Popular Than He Should Be? (Spoiler: Yeah.)
[P]essimism never eroded Mr. Obama’s approval as much as it arguably should have. There are several ways to show this. One way is to predict Mr. Obama’s approval based on the economy and other fundamental factors, and then see whether his actual approval matches, exceeds, or falls short of the prediction. To do so, we use 60 years of quarterly data on presidential approval, which contain polls from 1948 to 2008, and construct a statistical model of approval …
Mr. Obama’s higher-than-expected approval rating is surprising for two reasons. For one, since 2009 the economy has been in not a garden-variety recession, but a deep and prolonged slump. The economic measures in our model capture some of its characteristics — like unemployment — but not all, like the rise in long-term employment. Second, Mr. Obama’s race may also depress his approval rating. Studies of the 2008 election have found that Americans’ views of blacks were strongly associated with their views of Mr. Obama, and racial prejudice may have cost Mr. Obama about three points of vote share. Our model does not take account of race either, which is inevitable when there has been only one nonwhite president.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3gjhidPL21qzn8zio1_500.png)
FiveThirtyEight: Is Obama More Popular Than He Should Be? (Spoiler: Yeah.)
[P]essimism never eroded Mr. Obama’s approval as much as it arguably should have. There are several ways to show this. One way is to predict Mr. Obama’s approval based on the economy and other fundamental factors, and then see whether his actual approval matches, exceeds, or falls short of the prediction. To do so, we use 60 years of quarterly data on presidential approval, which contain polls from 1948 to 2008, and construct a statistical model of approval …
Mr. Obama’s higher-than-expected approval rating is surprising for two reasons. For one, since 2009 the economy has been in not a garden-variety recession, but a deep and prolonged slump. The economic measures in our model capture some of its characteristics — like unemployment — but not all, like the rise in long-term employment. Second, Mr. Obama’s race may also depress his approval rating. Studies of the 2008 election have found that Americans’ views of blacks were strongly associated with their views of Mr. Obama, and racial prejudice may have cost Mr. Obama about three points of vote share. Our model does not take account of race either, which is inevitable when there has been only one nonwhite president.
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andrewgraham posted this
