With financial markets in turmoil after Standard and Poor’s downgrade of U.S. debt, President Obama’s approval rating has dipped back to equal his all-time low of 40 percent in the Gallup daily tracking poll. No president since Harry Truman has been reelected with an approval rating as low this late into his first term.
While Presidents Reagan and Clinton both hit lower approval ratings at some point during their first terms, each of them had recovered by August of the year prior to their reelection, according to Gallup’s online tool.
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Clinton had been at 39 percent in Sept. 1994, just before the Republican takeover of Congress. But by this time in August, he had climbed up to 46 percent.
Reagan was as low as 35 percent in January of 1983. But by this time in 1983, he was at 44 percent, and would never dip below 43 percent before standing for reelection. He eventually reached 61 percent by the following November as the economy soared — something not expected to happen in 2012.
The elder President Bush was still sitting pretty right now, but his approval rating, which had peaked at 89 percent in the wake of the Gulf War, sank to 29 percent in early August 1992 due to the weak economy — a staggering turnaround. President Carter had reched as low as 29 percent at this point in his first term. Of course, each of them lost their reelection bids.
Truman’s example is more encouraging to Obama. His approval rating had reached as low as 36 percent as late of April of 1948, but he ended up rallying to win a squeaker that November — allowing him to mock the Chicago Tribune headline writers.
