The nasty presidential primary race that is driving up the disapproval rates of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton is having the opposite effect on President Obama, whose approval numbers have reached the highest level since his re-election nearly four years ago.
At least three new polls, led by Gallup, put Obama over 50 percent approval, with the latest Democracy Corps survey pegging his approval rating at 54 percent, equal to what he was at on Election Day 2012.
The trend, if it holds, should be a huge benefit to the Democrats in the fall election, providing a political coattail for the battered Clinton.
Pollsters and analysts interviewed by the Washington Examiner agree that Obama’s surge, which began at the end of last year, isn’t due to anything he’s done. Instead, both Democrats and Republicans agree that he simply looks better than Trump or Clinton.
“What you’re watching here is that the context of the political discourse to succeed him has been so bad that even he looks good,” said Republican pollster David Winston. His latest poll has Obama at 51 percent approval to 46 percent disapproval.
Pollster John Zogby agreed, adding that there is a bit of voter “nostalgia” for the president’s first term as Obama works through his last year.
“One measure of political approval is ‘compared to whom.’ Obama offers civility when increasingly in both parties, ‘civility’ looks like a dirty word,” said Stephen Hess, the presidential scholar and author at the Brookings Institution.
Zogby said that reaching an approval rating of a little over 50 percent is, and will be, the new normal for presidents in the politically divided America. “It can’t get much better, and few people get a chance to do that,” he said, noting that Obama’s approval is higher than George W. Bush’s when he left office and also higher than Gallup’s average presidential approval rating.
“With the country like this, the president wakes up in the morning and at least 42 percent hate his guts. So there’s not much room or maneuverability here, so yes, 50 percent is the new 60 percent,” he added.
The University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato said a resurgent Obama can help Democrats at the polls.
“There ought to be more attention to Obama’s job approval number, because if he keeps it over 50 percent, that is a big boost to the Democrats in November,” he said.
“I think his higher job approval is a combination of steady, good — but not great — economic conditions combined with the deep division and controversy that is apparent in the Republican contest to replace Obama,” he said.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
